1.7 - Too many noble troops available

[Sweynforkbeard]

Averages are an approximation of the actual game situation as well. The player can never actually come across 0.7 of a notable in gameplay.

What that .7 actually means in real gameplay terms is that you are objectively more likely to come across a castle village with 3 notables - and thus a whole extra row of troop slots- than one with 2, which lacks a whole row of troop slots. There are no notables that offer only 0.7 of a row of troops.

When you say "how likely you are to see one case over the other", that's exactly why you round it to 3, because we are talking about ingame cases here. It shouldn't even need explaining.

Jesus, I am seriously not going to discuss basic math that I assume is something you should have learned around the 8th or 9th grade.

TW announced that 25% was the target and the data you have so diligently gathered confirms that it is 25%. If you cannot or will not grasp this then fine, conjure up whatever number you like. I am done with this.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

It will barely phase the player in the know how too. They will have a full party of their chosen troops easily and the AI will just always have less.

This. As long as quality is worth it 100% elites is going to be the norm.

And, as I said previously, I seriously doubt players really want quality NOT to be worth it.

 

[five bucks]

Jesus, I am seriously not going to discuss basic math that I assume is something you should have learned around the 8th or 9th grade

It's not my fault that your school only taught you the concept of basic mathematics but never its practical application, and that you never opened the game and realized there's no such thing as 0.7 of a notable.

I travel between villages inbetween battles, I encounter a few villages with 2 rows of troops, and a few with 3 rows of troops. It's one or the other, and the figures show that I am definitely more likely to encounter a village where I get 3 rows of troops instead of 2. But never once will I stop at a village and see 0.7 of a notable who provides me with 0.7 of a row of troops.

TW announced that 25% was the target

Where? When?

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

It's not my fault that your school only taught you the concept of basic mathematics but never its practical application, and that you never opened the game and realized there's no such thing as 0.7 of a notable.

I travel between villages inbetween battles, I encounter a few villages with 2 rows of troops, and a few with 3 rows of troops. It's one or the other, and the figures show that I am definitely more likely to encounter a village where I get 3 rows of troops instead of 2. But never once will I stop at a village and see 0.7 of a notable who provides me with 0.7 of a row of troops.

Here is a basic example, maybe it will help

Person A has two apples
Person B has three apples
On average they have 2,5 apples. Not two, not three.

It does not matter that neither of the two actually has 2,5 apples. This is precisly why you use averages.

 

[humility925]

So you agree that limitations in a game are what makes it interesting, and that "more freedom" is not necessarily good.

I'm not saying that there are more elite troops than normal ones. I'm saying that there are just too many elite troops. Refer to the earlier post. 70% of troops are normal and 30% are elite. I'm proposing it should be 85% normal and 15% elite.

Children shouldn't be playing a mass murder game where you kill 10,000+ people anyway. Being old doesn't make it hard to play singleplayer games, one of the posters here (archaicwarrior) is 60 IIRC, and nobody over 80 has ever heard of a "mount and blade". The only disability which would make it hard to play games is being blind.

Reducing the amount of elite recruits from 30% to 15% is not going to make the game significantly harder or grindier, because it will apply to the AI as well as the player, so they will be at the same disadvantage.

It will only make the game take more grind if you are obsessively dedicated to only ever having a 100% elite party and never hiring regular troops. And it won't even be insurmountably difficult for you, either. But if it is too much, you can always use cheats.

For normal people who recruit a balanced army composition, it will not increase the game's difficulty or grindiness at all.

What it will do is:
1) Make elite troops feel more special, as they are more rare.
2) Improve immersion.
3) Make the perk to upgrade bandits to elite recruits comparatively more useful as a supplementary way of getting elite recruits.
4) Make the Vlandian Vanguard and Khuzait Heavy Horse Archer more viable compared to the Banner Knight and Khan's Guard.
5) Increase the variety in the game and player armies.
6) Reduce the issue of the player being at a disadvantage if they choose to pass up excessive amounts of elite recruits.

More freedom but not that cheat level is what I was in my mind.

15% eltite isn't good, 30% is more reaonable at least on normal level for common people to enjoy rather than not getting troop they want then end up not enjoy the game even on easy mode, easy mode should had something like 40% noble. 15% is making less thing to do in gameplay and that is not good as some don't want normal troop or some want horsemen right off bat, or whatever reason they prefer, they would still won't hire normal troop and waiting then looking noble, that is more cost time to them, and they would find game bored, nothing but waiting and try find noble unless normal troop already had horse or free upgrade without buy mount, without spent time seaching mount to buy and very costy at that, is why some seek noble in first place.

That's why I suggest free upgrade mount for normal troop, they might willing get normal more likely rather than waiting and try find noble only because had mount right off the bat and not had to search mount to buy costly mount.

People's body is not same thing, some elder need help with easy going due body slow reaction so they need more help powerful unit to winning without cheat.

There is game that do make harder for some disability, like deaf, some game's sound help winning while deaf wasn't hear, some are mental disability, I believe it's may be more common than people believe, at least in american, there disabiliy can't use hand but use eye on computer to work, so go on. There is couple deaf I knew do play game, and disability mental as well.

Believe or not, there is children do play game, even some don't follow policy rule said age 18 at least but didnt', since it's more of a guideline than a rule (well only for warband, but children do play (mostly male) battle many couple game, even point of Mortal kombat that are worst than this game but not real because breaking bone but still fighting as normal, so go on.

There is fine line between easy going and cheat, there, but fine line between normal and hard, what you want and talk about isn't easy or cheat, you want harder game in general as primary, that is big no no, that is should go for option, not primary.
I suppose they could add silder option how many noble number in game, same for slow or fast leveling in option, so go on.

Hard, slow, painful should be option, not primary official. I wasn't talk about cheat, I was talk about game enjoy on easy go or simple go at basic, anything more are option like harder, or difficulty or painful to get in game.

Game should be entertainment, game shouldn't painful, slow that eat up real life time, unfun.

 

[Akka]

default is up to player and choice, if you don't want to use it, simple don't use it.

Okay, let's be clear : that argument is **** and should never be made. Period.
There probably is a lot of counterpoints to make and maybe the guy wanting to reduce the noble troops is wrong, but no good argument about an imbalance should ever be "just don't use the mechanics that are available".

 

[Brentimus Maximus]

Some people want their forces to be primarily or 100% elite units and say the AI will always have fewer elites than the human player. In that case why not just get rid of the regular units? Its a silly argument in my opinion. By making them common your saying they aren't elite at all as elite implies superiority over the rest of a group. In other words, by making elites the common unit you take the uniqueness of them away and make regular units worthless.

This is coming from someone who prefers the elite units too. I just want some grounding here.

 

[five bucks]

Here is a basic example, maybe it will help

Person A has two apples
Person B has three apples
On average they have 2,5 apples. Not two, not three.

It does not matter that neither of the two actually has 2,5 apples. This is precisly why you use averages.

I thought you were going to stop posting?

In essence, you just said "this is what an average is. Therefore, this is what an average is. You use averages because nothing else matters except the average". You did not in the slightest address the argument that averages are not always the best way of representing data in real world situations.

The global average for settlement notables could be 2.6, so if each notable gave 1 troop, in theory I could get 10.4 troops by visiting 4 villages. However, there's not actually any such thing as 0.4 of a troop. This means you HAVE to round your number.

This issue arises because when you recruit troops between battles, you are recruiting them from a number of villages far fewer than the number you used to get the global average, so that nonexistent decimal point adds up over the course of many recruitment trips. By rounding from the outset, you avoid this issue.

15% eltite isn't good, 30% is more reaonable

To anyone who knows anything about the historical period Bannerlord is heavily based on, 15% is a much more reasonable amount.

Knights like Banner Knights would barely number 10% of a force:

"The proportion of cavalry to infantry seems to have been about one to seven when every possible combatant was enrolled into the latter. Anna’s estimate of the relative strength in Godfrey’s forces, though her figures should be divided at least by ten, is probably correct. At the battle of Ascalon, when every available man in Palestine was employed, there were 1200 cavalry and 9000 infantry, a proportion of one to seven and a half. At the siege of Jerusalem there were, according to Raymond of Aguilers, 1200 to 1300 knights out of an army of 12,000; which, however, included Genoese and English engineers and marines. The term ‘knights’ in this time period meant all armed horsemen, not in any chivalrous sense; while many of the infantrymen were not fully armed."

1 in 7 troops would be cavalry (14%). And that's all cavalry including both elites and non-elites. So, 15% is more than reasonable.

And it's perfect for making elite troops actually feel like special elites.

at least on normal level for common people

If you claim that common people prefer the current situation, then go do a survey to back it up. This thread indicates the opposite, that the majority of people here support reducing the number of elite troop recruits.

People's body is not same thing, some elder need help with easy going due body slow reaction so they need more help powerful unit to winning without cheat

Stacking powerful units is done with the end goal of making it easier for you to fight the AI who doesn't stack powerful units, which is inherently immersion breaking. So, there is no reason why you shouldn't just cheat then, because they are fundamentally the same thing: making it easier for yourself at the cost of immersion. Therefore "make easier without cheat" is not something that matters.

Believe or not, there is children do play game, even some don't follow policy rule said age 18 at least but didnt

And shouldn't be, end of discussion, ridiculous line of argument.

I suppose they could add silder option how many noble number in game

Too many sliders already, wreaks havoc with balancing and providing feedback. If they do add one it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be better to just reduce the amount of elite notables.

Game should be entertainment, game shouldn't painful, slow that eat up real life time, unfun.

Grinding is not fun, however challenging battles that the player can influence are fun. By stacking powerful troops to avoid challenge in your battles, with no army diversity and literally no thought required other than "press F1+F3 and watch horsie man run at mans", you are robbing yourself of the core source of entertainment in a game- challenge. But that's fine if you want to do that, just don't ruin the game for the rest of us.

As has already been said, reducing the number of elite recruits will not make the game grindier, more painful or slower, unless you are the sort of person who only ever recruits elite units and nothing else. Which in itself is grindy compared to just playing the game normally.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Some people want their forces to be primarily or 100% elite units and say the AI will always have fewer elites than the human player. In that case why not just get rid of the regular units? Its a silly argument in my opinion. By making them common your saying they aren't elite at all as elite implies superiority over the rest of a group. In other words, by making elites the common unit you take the uniqueness of them away and make regular units worthless.

This is coming from someone who prefers the elite units too. I just want some grounding here.

Because TW have decided to include a rank of troops that are better than others; if there is a better tool you are going to use it. If the elites did not exist then we would all be using the T5 variant of the best common troops instead.

For bannerlord
- it will be problematic to balance troops around availability because it will currently just push you toward the alternative recruitment paths.
- again, I personally suspect that the majority of players want T6 elites to stand above the rest; so just making them weak enough that you dont want to bother with them is hardly going to be a solution.
- you cant really balance them around cost either because money is just too plentiful.


The only cases where 100% elites have not been a stable (for me atleast) is in DLCs or mods like VC where it took insane amounts of xp to grind your troops to the highest level.

I suspect that alot would need to change before you are likely too see a truely better alternative.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

I thought you were going to stop posting?

In essence, you just said "this is what an average is. Therefore, this is what an average is. You use averages because nothing else matters except the average". You did not in the slightest address the argument that averages are not always the best way of representing data in real world situations.

The global average for settlement notables could be 2.6, so if each notable gave 1 troop, in theory I could get 10.4 troops by visiting 4 villages. However, there's not actually any such thing as 0.4 of a troop. This means you HAVE to round your number.

This issue arises because when you recruit troops between battles, you are recruiting them from a number of villages far fewer than the number you used to get the global average, so that nonexistent decimal point adds up over the course of many recruitment trips. By rounding from the outset, you avoid this issue.

Listen, this is what you did in your calculation.

"There are two guys, one has 2 apples, the other has 3. In total they have 5 apples which gives an average of 2,5 apples per person. Now you cant have 2,5 apples, thats just silly, so I am just going to say they have 3 each. Let me just calculate how many they have in total. That would be 2*3 which is 6. Omg, they have 6 apples, nerf apples!".

Fine I am done, you can continue to play math illiterate on your own now.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Grinding is not fun, however challenging battles that the player can influence are fun. By stacking powerful troops to avoid challenge in your battles, with no army diversity and literally no thought required other than "press F1+F3 and watch horsie man run at mans", you are robbing yourself of the core source of entertainment in a game- challenge. But that's fine if you want to do that, just don't ruin the game for the rest of us.

As has already been said, reducing the number of elite recruits will not make the game grindier, more painful or slower, unless you are the sort of person who only ever recruits elite units and nothing else. Which in itself is grindy compared to just playing the game normally.

I'll be honest I've been fine with the amount of noble troops in 1.7. I personally run with a pretty balanced squad of pure Sturgians, the nobles are about 25% of my force.

Spoiler

Also I feel like im finally getting to fight against them. The way I see it the game is pretty easy against normal troops and I want to the AI lords to actually use noble troops to give me a challenging battles, so I think its important the noble troops remain at this level so we don't go back to majority normal troop armies.
For example this khuzait army which had 75 noble troops out of 460 (~16%), which I think is a pretty good level.

Spoiler

 

[Brentimus Maximus]

- again, I personally suspect that the majority of players want T6 elites to stand above the rest; so just making them weak enough that you dont want to bother with them is hardly going to be a solution.

There really isn't a "rest" of them to stand above if elite troops are common. Then its more like there are normal troops and sub-par troops. And sub par troops aren't fun to anyone.

If elite = common then elite isn't elite.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

There really isn't a "rest" of them to stand above if elite troops are common. Then its more like there are normal troops and sub-par troops. And sub par troops aren't fun to anyone.

If elite = common then elite isn't elite.

Nope you are right, noone (perhaps a few) wants to use sub-par troops and that is why T6 is going to dominate the players rosters. If T6 did not exist our rosters would be dominated by T5s instead. The rest of them are not going to be used eitherway; other than in the basic capacity as a stepping stone for the next level.

The problem is that trying to restrict the players choices by quantitative measures leads to tedium, hence undoubtedly the change. Atleast the current format allows the AI to also field noble line troops. For some factions, like the empire, it means that they are no-longer (completely) free XP.

 

[five bucks]

Because TW have decided to include a rank of troops that are better than others; if there is a better tool you are going to use it.

Let's run with that tool analogy. Say you are buying tools for 10 mechanics to get a job done today. The local hardware store only has one ratchet spanner in stock, and nine normal spanners. You call other hardware stores and they are basically the same. Do you:

A) drive around the whole region going to ten hardware stores so you can get 10 ratchet spanners

B) just buy 1 ratchet spanner and 9 normal spanners from one shop, allowing your mechanics to get started much quicker at a minor cost of effectiveness?

Availability allows you to balance out "better tools" via recruitment time, as ultimately all effectiveness of things in Bannerlord is measured in time.

If the elites did not exist then we would all be using the T5 variant of the best common troops instead.

If T6 did not exist our rosters would be dominated by T5s instead.

The roster being dominated by normal troops is not an issue because there are 5 different types of T5 normal troop, with plenty of gameplay variety, while there is only 1 type of T6 elite troop (no variety). In addition, the roster being dominated by normal troops is more realistic and immersive and makes T6s feel special as they should.

And if the roster is dominated by T5 the player will still be using T6 where available too, so in other words player armies will be comprised of a full variety of troop types in the game. Sounds great!

it will be problematic to balance troops around availability because it will currently just push you toward the alternative recruitment paths

this has already been responded to about 4 times, I don't know why you're so terrified of "alternative recruitment paths", if one elite notable is removed, picking up elites from villages will still be quicker than any alternative recruitment path.

again, I personally suspect that the majority of players want T6 elites to stand above the rest; so just making them weak enough that you dont want to bother with them is hardly going to be a solution

I think a more accurate assessment would not be that players want T6 to be much better than T5, but for both T5 and T6 to be much better than T1.

As in, "Ten T5 can beat fifty T1. Ten T6 can beat sixty T1." (As opposed to the current situation where ten T6 can barely beat thirty T1).

Listen, this is what you did in your calculation.

"That would be 2*3 which is 6. Omg, they have 6 apples, nerf apples!".

Nice strawman. You seem to have ignored the part about how multiple small journeys add up over the course of an entire playthrough. You can also just look below for my ingame examples of actually getting higher than 30% elite recruits during recruitment drives.

I'll be honest I've been fine with the amount of noble troops in 1.7. I personally run with a pretty balanced squad of pure Sturgians, the nobles are about 25% of my force.

I'm sure you endeavour to run a balanced party, but perhaps you are unconsciously passing up some recruits to do so. Here's my experience.

I travelled from Baltakhand to Odokh in a save where a small amount of time had passed and I hadn't built any relations with the Khuzait, so there was only 1 slot available. I only went a small way out of my way to visit fiefs during the journey.
Total: 4 elite and 11 normal recruits. 36% were elite.

Then loaded up a different save where I had about 2-3 slots in many places, and went from Car Banseth to Epicrotea.
Total: 9 elite and 28 normal. 32% were elite.

In the same save, Rhotae to Pravend.
Total: 12 elite, 35 normal, 34% of recruits were elite.

Finally a lategame save. Reyvl to Tyal.
Total: 18 elite, 43 normal, 41% of available recruits were elite!

The way I see it the game is pretty easy against normal troops and I want to the AI lords to actually use noble troops to give me a challenging battles, so I think its important the noble troops remain at this level so we don't go back to majority normal troop armies.

Reducing the elite notables per village by 1 (paired with a balance pass to make troops like Khan's Guard less effective and ranged troops better balanced by working armor) will not really change the level of challenge in the game higher or lower (unless you currently hoard KG/Fians), because it will be a reduction for both the player and the AI.

On the other hand, players who currently hoard armies of just Khan's Guard or Fians will actually find it more challenging. Though not by a huge amount.

We shouldn't rely on weird quirks to balance the game, it should be designed to be challenging in a natural and immersive way.

Plus it is highly unlikely it will ever go back to the time of all-recruit armies like in 1.1, because now village troops level up passively, so you get a mix of different troop levels.

For example this khuzait army which had 75 noble troops out of 460 (~16%), which I think is a pretty good level.

Spoiler

So nobles tend to pick up mercenaries and bandits more often than I realized, and we all know how garbage mercenary troops are in real battles. If mercenary troops were buffed, which they should be, that would make their parties more effective in battle.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

On the other hand, players who currently hoard armies of just Khan's Guard or Fians will actually find it more challenging. Though not by a huge amount.

You dont get it. They are worth it now and they where worth it before. It took longer to hoard an army of KGs or Fians; but once you had them you could roll over everything and everyone. The game wasnt more difficult before the change, it was much easier because the AI did not have meaningful access to noble troops.

KG´s and Fians are low attrition troops. It was those who did not (want to) rely on those that had issues.

 

[five bucks]

You dont get it. They are worth it now and they where worth it before. It took longer to hoard an army of KGs or Fians; but once you had them you could roll over everything and everyone. The game wasnt more difficult before the change, it was much easier because the AI did not have meaningful access to noble troops. KG´s and Fians are low attrition troops.

No, you don't get it, because you obstinately refuse to READ the thing I have been saying multiple times since the beginning of the discussion: Taleworlds is working on fixing armor, this is already confirmed, and more effective armour means a nerf to Khan's Guard and Fians that will most likely make them much less effective.

The current state of extreme imbalance to KG and Fians is temporary, unless there's not a single person at TW who listens to the community or has common sense, in which case posting on forums is pointless anyway. Otherwise, it's a given that KGs and Fians will be nerfed and no longer be "low attrition".

 

[CrazyElf]

I don't know what you mean but with 150-200 Khan's guard I can run down every party and army and capture every lord easily while my vassals just ravage everything and siege on their own. I of course can also take any fief with that force or even a much lesser one but YMMV. That's not to say fians wouldn't be good too or a mixture of both, but I flat out reject any idea that Khan's guard are bad in siege. They're "too good" for a conventional siege, but they perform excellently.

Fians do have some big advantages - most notably at sieges for example.

My experience that I saw too many game and knew that common people prefer easy/normal, faster pace game rather than slow, painful hard grinding game that played by few for over my experience 20 years in many different game.

The solution the choice between slow vs fast paced games. 4X games do this all the time - options o how fast research, wealth, and construction speeds are.

A lot of people also don't have much tie to game.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

The current state of extreme imbalance to KG and Fians is temporary, unless there's not a single person at TW who listens to the community or has common sense, in which case posting on forums is pointless anyway. Otherwise, it's a given that KGs and Fians will be nerfed and no longer be "low attrition".

They are ranged troops, they will always be low attrition troops. Improved armor isnt going to make KGs or Fians useless, what it will, hopefully, do is make the rest of the T6 troops more viable.

 

[five bucks]

They are ranged troops, they will always be low attrition troops

We already discussed this. This discussion has gone on too long, so please try not to bring up arguments that have already been covered. Otherwise we are just going in circles.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/1-7-too-many-noble-troops-available.449991/page-3#post-9783867

"But if armour is buffed against arrows, and KG become weaker melee fighters, then a party of Fians will find the enemy surviving enough of their arrows to get into melee range and inflict casualties. And a KG party will find that their enemies often survive enough arrows that they have to charge into melee, where they perform worse than before and take casualties. In both cases, this means more attrition than now."

Improved armor isnt going to make KGs or Fians useless

Well I never said it would.

What it will, hopefully, do is make the rest of the T6 troops more viable.

Yep. It should ideally make all melee fighters equally as viable as their ranged counterparts, and make high tier units with better armour more effective at fighting low tier units with bad armour.

 

[geala]

Luckily the game is moddable. I hope there will be some "realism" mods which take into account the very costs to field "nobles". I would opt for about 10% to 15%, that's often the ratio of well armed troops in Dark Age armies.

To Khan Guards and Fians, or ranged in general, armor is not the main solution in my opinion. Better blocking with shields is more important, also because most units on the field should be lowly armored normal troops and not plated elites from which there are much too many in the game (I count many T5 into this category too). I often have the feeling that "armor fans" are the no-shield-wreak-havoc-with-twohanders-from-behind guys who need big armor for their unrealistic deeds and who are disturbed by arrows too easily.

Why does the AI not attack ranged troops with cavalry? With RBM AI module it does to a certain degree, and when you allow it and do not counter, casualties among ranged are very high. That's a better solution than buffing armor (which has to be done to a certain degree, don't misunderstand).