Armor lack of effectiveness Devs should consider

[five bucks]

They are noticeably more effective, whether that was tweaking the damage, HP value, etc...I can take a few more arrow hits than EA release

Fians have been directly nerfed once since EA release early on, but pierce damage to armour has not been changed. I did a test of various armour types before and after the blunt damage change and it increased the hits to kill by about 1, that's the only general change bow damage has received.

Remove the weird damage/effectiveness of polearms on mounts (another discussion), make horses easier to fell (too tanky), tweak their armor set, etc...HA with just range alone is barely effective - they don't aim as well or slow (cancelling often), take longer time to kill others, etc..., even if we give them 2 quivers.

Yes one of those things should happen as well as fixing armour, but all bow/crossbow troops are OP and the damage to armour is ridiculously unrealistic, so nerfing bows/crossbow damage is where we should logically start.

Yes, Fians are stupidly OP - but to fix that, we should nerf them, not by make all other units' (armours) stronger. 'Cause now you have to deal with balancing all the other aspects of those updated troops for vs swords, vs blunts, vs polearms, vs throwing, vs cavs, and even vs map simulation/economy.

Worked fine for balancing blunt damage when Taleworlds did that a few patches ago, so I do not see it as the super difficult thing you think it might be.

It's literally just increasing pierce damage by 1.7x and then increasing the base damage of piercing melee/throwing attacks by 1.7x so that they are in the same spot they were in before.

All ranged troops are OP so nerfing fians specifically is not needed. Nerfing all ranged troops by buffing armour to be more realistic (not perfectly realistic) is needed.

Ie. RBM also needed something like the posture thing to tone it down (though toggleable) and didn't mod any of the overworld systems from the consequence making the armoured troops 'OP/realistic'; which was needed to balance that aspect of it.

RBM was not just looking to just balance the game but to make it as realistic as possible which is why all those changes were needed.

Those changes were not necessary in Warband and it worked fine.

I'd rather nerf the bows at this stage before doing another buff pass on armour. For both bow/xbow, still think their range/accuracy aren't a close representation to RL

It's much, much closer to RL than the depleted uranium armour piercing arrow bullets are. So, fix armour first.

The discussion has already been had before about bow accuracy. If you remember, the results were (A) it won't fix the imbalance of ranged troops en masse because they are usually firing into large crowds where accuracy matters little; (B) ranged troops are already quite inaccurate as it is - go stand still at 30+ metres from a mid tier troop and see how often they actually hit you!; (C) making the game's design more about RNG is not a good outcome.

No offense, but it frustrates me when people beat around the bush with nonsense which does not fix the actual problem. The problem is obvious and can be proven by simply looking at the last game vs. the current game.

For both bow/xbow, still think their range + accuracy aren't a close representation to RL (even in Warband).

It's much closer to RL than armour is. So, fix armour first.

It was also was harder/slower to accumulate the top-tier armoured troops

In Warband? Not really, you had the Trainer skill which gave fantastic passive experience each day.

A Tier 5 archer took 10 arrows to kill a T5 armoured troop in Warband. A T3 Archer took 7 arrows to kill a T3 armoured troop.

shields were weaker/'realistic'

We both agree shields should be a bit weaker also.

Warband had weaker shields and better armour.
Bannerlord just needs to do the same.

 

[JunKeteer]

Crossbows trade of (in this period and culture area) is that it can be used with relativelly short training and you can get relativelly accurate fast (gun like aiming plus adjusting for distance), you can also have it ready for prolonged time and ocassionally come out of cover to shoot. As far as pure DPS goes, they are same or generally even inferior to war bows in terms of damage, range and definitelly inferior in terms of reload speed. So technically bows are superior in almost all aspects but it takes long time to get there and the archer needs decent diet and to train at least few times a week in order to get into shape (and form) and stay there (talking from experience). Better armor penetration is pure AOE meme.

Fair enough, power in form of not needing the same training/strength for equivalent damage from something like war bows. Accuracy/distance-wise, would assume they would fall off much quicker than arrows primarily due to aerodynamics, etc...I haven't really intentionally tested their range in game step-by-step with an 'equivalent' archer but it feels too far. Gameplay-wise, reason why they should be slightly better in melee than archers for that tradeoff and slower rate of fire.

Fians have been directly nerfed once since EA release early on, but pierce damage to armour has not been changed. I did a test of various armour types before and after the blunt damage change and it increased the hits to kill by about 1, that's the only general change bow damage has received.

Then it might've been the armor values (not factoring) they did for a few armour. Can't remember fully now 3+ years in EA.

Yes one of those things should happen as well as fixing armour, but all bow/crossbow troops are OP and the damage to armour is ridiculously unrealistic, so nerfing bows/crossbow damage is where we should logically start.

Which is essentially all I'm saying currently, bow/xbows need a nerf check first, then maybe get that armour tweaked afterwards if needed.

Worked fine for balancing blunt damage when Taleworlds did that a few patches ago, so I do not see it as the super difficult thing you think it might be.

Not meaning difficulty in technicality, in terms of effort with the pace/response from TW; as I'd also rather preferred if they constantly tweaked the damage/armor/weapons/etc...with most mainline patches based on feedback each time. Vs maybe only a handful amount of adjustments they made in that department for 3+ years and onwards.

It's literally just increasing pierce damage by 1.7x and then increasing the base damage of piercing melee/throwing attacks by 1.7x so that they are in the same spot they were in before.

Not denying that pierce factor needs to be updated so spears are better than they are, and maybe give a better purpose to sword thrusts.

All ranged troops are OP so nerfing fians specifically is not needed. Nerfing all ranged troops by buffing armour to be more realistic (not perfectly realistic) is needed.

So nerf the ranged units directly, see the in-game effects, then balance armour afterwards - buffing armour now affects not only vs range, but also vs melee, cav v cav, etc...As well as the effect on the siege defense/attack rebalancing (and pathing/overcrowding that comes with) with heavier armour already being very capable in siege attacks.

RBM was not just looking to just balance the game but to make it as realistic as possible which is why all those changes were needed.

Yes, but you also sort of need other mods to 'fix' the other aspects of the game to also be realistic to make it all work holistically (in addition to war horses aforementioned). Whether that mod creator/s want to dabble on the rest or wait on further mods to include in the whole environment, that's their choice. For custom-battles, RBM on its own is great because it doesn't necessarily have to deal with the overworld balance/economy.

The discussion has already been had before about bow accuracy. If you remember, the results were (A) it won't fix the imbalance of ranged troops en masse because they are usually firing into large crowds where accuracy matters little;

But the AI isn't firing 'en masse' they are still each targeting individuals which is why Fians are extremely effective. Adjusting their accuracy (reticle deviation) doesn't change that aspect, but does for smaller engagements and siege attack/defense.

(B) ranged troops are already quite inaccurate as it is - go stand still at 30+ metres from a mid tier troop and see how often they actually hit you!;

Because they probably aren't using those noble bows that are ~98 accuracy (iirc) + skill perks. I'm not saying to take all bows down 10 points in accuracy if that was their change - just pinch the deviation of the bows from the lowest to the highest for troops.

No offense, but it frustrates me when people beat around the bush with nonsense which does not fix the actual problem. The problem is obvious and can be proven by simply looking at the last game vs. the current game.

Warband had weaker shields and better armour.
Bannerlord just needs to do the same.

This is all already in the realm of subjective opinions for gameplay. In a vacuum, 100% agree armour is not in a good spot for combat and is a problem - but only changing that doesn't fix the overall balance of the game; and will make it further imbalanced on that end imo.
WB also did recruit differently, income differently, smaller battles, different engagement frequency, sieges were 'dumber', etc...So if this is beating around the bush of the problem, sure; but I'm trying to see the forest for the trees.

Whether TW has any appetite/capability to make any changes; for armour, I think they will need to adjust a lot more in addition with it.

 

[five bucks]

Which is essentially all I'm saying currently, bow/xbows need a nerf check first, then maybe get that armour tweaked afterwards if needed.

By nerfing their damage I mean nerfing their damage vs armour.

Not meaning difficulty in technicality, in terms of effort with the pace/response from TW; as I'd also rather preferred if they constantly tweaked the damage/armor/weapons/etc...with most mainline patches based on feedback each time. Vs maybe only a handful amount of adjustments they made in that department for 3+ years and onwards.

Just look at the blunt damage changes TW made, it was an INSTANT improvement to the playability of the game. That is how I see a change to pierce damage going. It does not have to create perfect balance. It just needs to solve a gaping problem in the game's balance to get things to an acceptable level. Further work can continue from there.

So nerf the ranged units directly, see the in-game effects, then balance armour afterwards - buffing armour now affects not only vs range, but also vs melee, cav v cav, etc...As well as the effect on the siege defense/attack rebalancing (and pathing/overcrowding that comes with) with heavier armour already being very capable in siege attacks.

Can I get this rephrased? I don't understand what the issue is with simply fixing armour first, as it is the most obvious problem and we know from Warband, where armour worked, that armour is the key to balance here.

Heavier armour is currently not very capable *against arrows* in siege attacks. If I take just a handful of stray arrows from militia archers while wearing Steel Brass Padded Reinforced Luxury Super Hyper Lamellar Armour, just those few arrows mean I am effectively unable to participate in the rest of the siege.

But the AI isn't firing 'en masse' they are still each targeting individuals which is why Fians are extremely effective. Adjusting their accuracy (reticle deviation) doesn't change that aspect, but does for smaller engagements and siege attack/defense.

Most of your midgame and lategame field battles are going to be 100s vs 100s confrontations where infantry move in big blobs. It doesn't matter if archers are targeting individuals, if they miss a shot on target A but target B, C, and D are all standing next to them, someone is going to get hit.

Because they probably aren't using those noble bows that are ~98 accuracy (iirc) + skill perks. I'm not saying to take all bows down 10 points in accuracy if that was their change - just pinch the deviation of the bows from the lowest to the highest for troops.

But low tier troops are already excessively lethal too. It's not just Fians that need to be nerfed. It's all archers that are too good for their tier compared to all melee combatants.

Let's compare their pros and cons:
Average T3 melee troop
* Can kill T3 enemies in ~4 hits.
* Is blockable by both melee weapons and also shields. Allied troops will also get in their way and make it impossible for them to attack.
* Must run all the way to each enemy they wish to fight, making them inefficient against spread out enemies.
* Must always risk injury (highly likely) to fight.
* Slightly more decent armour; slightly more effective in melee combat.

Average T3 ranged troop
* Can kill T3 enemies in ~4 hits.
* Is blockable by shields. Cannot be blocked by melee weapons. Can fire over the heads of allies.
* Can attack enemies from a distance, allowing for rapid target switching.
* Does not need to risk injury to fight.
* Slightly less decent armour; slightly less effective in melee combat. If melee troops actually ever get in range for melee combat.

Answer me this: When a ranged troop is better in so many ways, why would you ever upgrade to melee troops? The only purpose of infantry in Bannerlord battles is to be small amounts of distraction trash to drop the enemy shields so that your archers can slaughter them.

The only solution here is to make armour better so that ranged troops are not doing the same damage as melee troops!

In a vacuum, 100% agree armour is not in a good spot for combat and is a problem - but only changing that doesn't fix the overall balance of the game; and will make it further imbalanced on that end imo.

Making armour 1.7x more effective against arrows/bolts, and slightly nerfing shields' HP, will not make the game "further imbalanced". That's a ridiculous statement when archers are as good as they are.

WB also did recruit differently, income differently, smaller battles, different engagement frequency, sieges were 'dumber', etc...

None of those things are significantly different enough to explain away the difference in armour effectiveness between this game and that game. The simple fact is that ranged troops in Warband were better balanced because armour was more effective against bows and arrows. It isn't rocket science!

So if this is beating around the bush of the problem, sure; but I'm trying to see the forest for the trees.

The forest in this analogy is the very obvious, massively unrealistic inadequacy of armour which flies in the face of basic balancing common sense. If you make a video game with melee troops and ranged troops, you don't make the ranged troops do the same damage as your melee troops with most other factors being equal. That's game balance 101.

Until armor is fixed, Bannerlord will keep being Call of Duty: Medieval Edition.

 

[JunKeteer]

By nerfing their damage I mean nerfing their damage vs armour.

Just look at the blunt damage changes TW made, it was an INSTANT improvement to the playability of the game. That is how I see a change to pierce damage going. It does not have to create perfect balance. It just needs to solve a gaping problem in the game's balance to get things to an acceptable level. Further work can continue from there.

Which you can do by nerfing archers directly first, before improving their opponents' armour; which is also applicable to every other unit that is considered armoured.
I'd rather they just make the archers weaker first before we make armour better; I wasn't really a fan of the 0-1 damage nonsense that was in WB when you get the best armours.

Can I get this rephrased? I don't understand what the issue is with simply fixing armour first, as it is the most obvious problem and we know from Warband, where armour worked, that armour is the key to balance here.

If we make armour more effective first, we have to then fix melee weapons accordingly so they don't become invalidated; the factoring for cuts, pierce, as well as redo the recent changes made to blunt. Then balance out the T1-3 (and even 4) troops that don't have those top armours, while making sure range is still useful at all levels so we still keep that gameplay rock>paper>scissors.

Heavier armour is currently not very capable *against arrows* in siege attacks. If I take just a handful of stray arrows from militia archers while wearing Steel Brass Padded Reinforced Luxury Super Hyper Lamellar Armour, just those few arrows mean I am effectively unable to participate in the rest of the siege.

Sure for attacking, if you only have shieldless troops, don't have your own batch of sniping archers, no siege ram/tower, they are not effective against archers (as they shouldn't be). Siege attacks in BL are already very easy for a whole host of reasons, which is why most cases, you're better off autosim'ing it as the defender (which shouldn't be the case).

Let's compare their pros and cons:
Average T3 melee troop
* Can kill T3 enemies in ~4 hits.
* Is blockable by both melee weapons and also shields. Allied troops will also get in their way and make it impossible for them to attack.
* Must run all the way to each enemy they wish to fight, making them inefficient against spread out enemies.
* Must always risk injury (highly likely) to fight.
* Slightly more decent armour; slightly more effective in melee combat.

Average T3 ranged troop
* Can kill T3 enemies in ~4 hits.
* Is blockable by shields. Cannot be blocked by melee weapons. Can fire over the heads of allies.
* Can attack enemies from a distance, allowing for rapid target switching.
* Does not need to risk injury to fight.
* Slightly less decent armour; slightly less effective in melee combat. If melee troops actually ever get in range for melee combat.

Answer me this: When a ranged troop is better in so many ways, why would you ever upgrade to melee troops? The only purpose of infantry in Bannerlord battles is to be small amounts of distraction trash to drop the enemy shields so that your archers can slaughter them.

Yes, cost for cost, especially starting out, almost no-brainer opting for archers for the aforementioned tactic. But that tactic is also not as effective as it was in WB where you could have 100 vaegir marksman, and maybe 10 huscarls and just steamroll practically everything. Especially since cavalry (besides knights) were not as frequent in most battles as it is in BL.

The only solution here is to make armour better so that ranged troops are not doing the same damage as melee troops!

Making armour 1.7x more effective against arrows/bolts, and slightly nerfing shields' HP, will not make the game "further imbalanced". That's a ridiculous statement when archers are as good as they are.

Archers do too much damage ('same' as melee from aforementioned points), then simply make them do less. Be it through ROF, arrow velocity, damage calc, bow damage, arrow damage, change to cut vs piece factor, etc...

None of those things are significantly different enough to explain away the difference in armour effectiveness between this game and that game. The simple fact is that ranged troops in Warband were better balanced because armour was more effective against bows and arrows. It isn't rocket science!

The forest in this analogy is the very obvious, massively unrealistic inadequacy of armour which flies in the face of basic balancing common sense. If you make a video game with melee troops and ranged troops, you don't make the ranged troops do the same damage as your melee troops with most other factors being equal. That's game balance 101.

Nor should the cost of those armoured melee troops be the 'same' as archers (which they are); given their equipment is more expensive as the reason they could take those hits. Or what about stamina/weight factors?
As said before, if looking at the combat aspect solely, yes, armour is too weak - but I don't play BL for the custom-battles; but the whole thing (even in its current poor state).

 

[swally0ne]

if a t5 archer needs 5-7 shots to take down one unit, then why should i get him in the first place? non noble archers are already of limited use as long as they are not fighting low tier units or you not going for exploits. yes the change probably would be more realistic (as we know people with armor where dancing in rain of arrows). but if i want reality at any cost i would just go outside.

i cannot wait to go infantry only after taleworlds would consider those horrible takes.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

if a t5 archer needs 5-7 shots to take down one unit, then why should i get him in the first place? non noble archers are already of limited use as long as they are not fighting low tier units or you not going for exploits. yes the change probably would be more realistic (as we know people with armor where dancing in rain of arrows). but if i want reality at any cost i would just go outside.

i cannot wait to go infantry only after taleworlds would consider those horrible takes.

Because they make enemy troops significantly easier for your own troops to beat up when it comes time to clash? Because they can be used to batter turtling troops without the risk of getting into melee? Because there is much utility in doing damage from safety? And maybe because there are a lot of low tier troops they can kill off easily enough?

Increasing armour doesn't make them useless, it makes them less overbearing.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Which you can do by nerfing archers directly first, before improving their opponents' armour; which is also applicable to every other unit that is considered armoured.
I'd rather they just make the archers weaker first before we make armour better; I wasn't really a fan of the 0-1 damage nonsense that was in WB when you get the best armours.

I like heavy infantry that feel like legitimate threats, so a general armour improvement is good for that.

If we make armour more effective first, we have to then fix melee weapons accordingly so they don't become invalidated; the factoring for cuts, pierce, as well as redo the recent changes made to blunt. Then balance out the T1-3 (and even 4) troops that don't have those top armours, while making sure range is still useful at all levels so we still keep that gameplay rock>paper>scissors.

Eh, something like cutting does the most damage and kills light troops best, pierce as a middle ground and blunt as the worst, but most consistent damage that can actually hurt armour works well enough.

Nor should the cost of those armoured melee troops be the 'same' as archers (which they are); given their equipment is more expensive as the reason they could take those hits. Or what about stamina/weight factors?
As said before, if looking at the combat aspect solely, yes, armour is too weak - but I don't play BL for the custom-battles; but the whole thing (even in its current poor state).

I think tbh, just trying to boost armour and all that is meaningless if you keep vanilla troop systems as they are. It basically just turns heavy troops into the new cheese. Since they're obtainable everywhere, it doesn't take long for things to get out of hand.

 

[five bucks]

I'd rather they just make the archers weaker first before we make armour better; I wasn't really a fan of the 0-1 damage nonsense that was in WB when you get the best armours.

I'm not asking for 0-1 damage. Unless it's like a glancing leg shot from a low tier bow at 50m or something.

If we make armour more effective first, we have to then fix melee weapons accordingly so they don't become invalidated; the factoring for cuts, pierce, as well as redo the recent changes made to blunt.

You're overcomplicating it - all that's necessary is to change the pierce damage modifier number; then increase the damage number on each pierce melee weapon so their damage remains the same as it was before, except spears which can be raised a bit more (which needs to happen anyway). Also reduce the HP number of shields a bit (which needs to happen anyway). None of this is super complex.

Then balance out the T1-3 (and even 4) troops that don't have those top armours, while making sure range is still useful at all levels so we still keep that gameplay rock>paper>scissors.

Range will still be useful at all levels. Because (a) it was in Warband with over 2x more powerful armour, and (b) I'm only asking for 1.7x more powerful armour, and (c) we agree shields should be weaker also.

Sure for attacking, if you only have shieldless troops, don't have your own batch of sniping archers, no siege ram/tower, they are not effective against archers (as they shouldn't be).

Archers obviously counter archers. You could say that about anything overpowered.
Troops pushing the ram/tower tend to get shot and killed, and since the buffs to defending siege engines, rams/towers get destroyed more often too. And you also have the time to build on top of that, so you won't be able to field rams/towers in every siege.
Shielded troops can't use their shields when being shot in enfilade. Castles are designed so that archers can shoot someone on a ladder or tower from all angles. In real life, your armour would be your protection when being shot at from all sides.

Yes, cost for cost, especially starting out, almost no-brainer opting for archers for the aforementioned tactic. But that tactic is also not as effective as it was in WB where you could have 100 vaegir marksman, and maybe 10 huscarls and just steamroll practically everything.

You could steamroll with any top tier troop in Warband. It was a more balanced game than Bannerlord, where ranged top tier troops are much better than non-ranged top tier troops.

if a t5 archer needs 5-7 shots to take down one unit, then why should i get him in the first place? i cannot wait to go infantry only

Go play Warband then come back.

Archers needed up to 10 shots in Warband to kill same-tier units. Yet archers were still a totally viable option. Rhodok Sharpshooters and, as Junketeer said, Vaegir Marksmen were useful additions to the player's army, which you could stack.

Why should you use a ranged unit if their ranged attack does less damage than a melee attack? Because they can attack the enemy from a distance. They don't have to run all the way to the enemy to shoot them, meaning they can swap targets instantly. They don't have to risk fighting to kill people. They can't be blocked by melee weapons. They can shoot over the heads of your allies. If the enemy is standing still defensively and not coming to attack you, you can just bombard them with arrows. They can attack constantly during a siege, when melee troops can't due to the tower/ram/ladder not being ready yet. During a siege an archer can get 5 kills where a melee troop will get 0.

Surely you can agree this is sound logic.

In addition I am proposing that shields have their HP nerfed a little bit so archers can actually destroy them more often. Again, like it was in Warband (where it was more realistic as well as more fun and more balanced).

non noble archers are already of limited use as long as they are not fighting low tier units or you not going for exploits.

Non noble archers are much more useful than non-noble infantry, and don't cost horses like cavalry do.

 

[Rossa]

In my opinion the RBM mod has already dealt with most those problems way better than anything i expect from talewords at this point.
- Increased overall armor ratings(maybe a bit too much), making high tier armor worth the price.( They recently added a very nice locational damage/armor rating system, like face/ under arm hits- now even swords are usefull again)
- Improved spear usage and damage
- Improved AI(still lacking, but much better than vanilla)
- Low tier archers have arrows that deal cutting damage, making them affective agains low tier troops.
- High tier archers have arrows that deal pierce damage, making them more effective against high tier troops.

The biggest problem this game has is it's terrible ai, that's why it's so easy to expoit it with archer only parties or any high tier parties. The lords recruits and upgrades troops at random, there is no strategy to battles, they charge with everything or they sit and wait you murder all the tier 1 recruits they are running arround with. Campain Ai is also terrible, the recruiting system makes getting high tier troops too easy for the player.Ai is also a lot harder to mod than troop equipment and stats, that's why i think taslewords should focus on dealing with the AI instead of making changes to acomodate it.

 

[swally0ne]

Because they make enemy troops significantly easier for your own troops to beat up when it comes time to clash?

when it "comes time to clash" archers turn useless. if you try to flank to trap infantry enemy horse get the meat.

Because they can be used to batter turtling troops without the risk of getting into melee?

yea. like thats what actually an archer does lol.

Because there is much utility in doing damage from safety?

yep, as long as they do damage. take away damage=useless

And maybe because there are a lot of low tier troops they can kill off easily enough?

you mean unarmored units shouldnt get killed by arrows. how real is that now

Increasing armour doesn't make them useless, it makes them less overbearing.

as long as we are not talking fians, they are not overbearing sh*t.

i dont know how often i stood in a siege getting 5930280547209834570298357238572 arrows and received 4 damage for each shot on highest diff. 20 headshot damage from a sharpshooter on open battlefield with 50+armor helmet. receiving no punish for making bad decissions is just not it and this topic is just full of hot garbage.

you want less damage? lower difficulty and this topic could be closed.

 

[Rossa]

I think you are missing the point here... the problem most people have is archer damage vs ai troops, not the player or player troops.
Most enemy infantry is dead before they reach your line.

 

[swally0ne]

Most enemy infantry is dead before they reach your line.

i do get the point but this isnt the case since 1.8.0 where enemy shieldwall is actually lifting the shields, if the ai decides to work.
the only case where archers appearing to be strong is when they face low tier or not working ai (enemy troops not getting into position etc. pp.) and even there it would already take a long time to bring down t5 units.
so the problem is not the damage, but the ai. ofc except noble archers. fians indeed are op ngl.

 

[Rossa]

i do get the point but this isnt the case since 1.8.0 where enemy shieldwall is actually lifting the shields, if the ai decides to work.
the only case where archers appearing to be strong is when they face low tier or not working ai (enemy troops not getting into position etc. pp.) and even there it would already take a long time to bring down t5 units.
so the problem is not the damage, but the ai. ofc except noble archers. fians indeed are op ngl.

Shields do work better, but only for t4+ troops and in reality most lords are runnig arround with mostly t2, t3 troops.
I agree the AI is the biggest problem and until they fix it will aways be easy to exploit it. The issue with armor is that it's not worth paying that much money in something that does little better than what you can loot from sea raiders. Or easily getting stoned to death by a bunch of looters even wearing the best armor.

 

[five bucks]

In my opinion the RBM mod has already dealt with most those problems way better than anything i expect from talewords at this point.

The problem is that RBM can be broken with each patch TW puts out, that it does a whole bunch of other things I'm not necessarily a fan of, and that console players can't have mods.

Also, Taleworlds did a good job with the blunt damage to armour changes. It enormously improved gameplay. They basically just have to do the same thing again with pierce damage.

when it "comes time to clash" archers turn useless. if you try to flank to trap infantry enemy horse get the meat.

Archers/crossbowmen are actually not that bad in melee. They have decent armour and are usually ok fighters, definitely not useless, and able to inflict casualties in melee. Swadian Sharpshooters for example have good swords and a very tough shield.

All you need is a token small force (10-20%) of distraction infantry to turtle in front of your archers (80-90%) and your archers will never need to fight in melee because they turn everything that tries to attack your tiny distraction infantry group into mincemeat.

yea. like thats what actually an archer does lol. You mean unarmoured units shouldn't be killed by arrows. How real is that now

You're getting mixed up.

I said it should take ~7 hits to kill instead of ~5.
You said why would anyone use archers if they took 5 hits to kill.
HalfJacket gave you the reasons why people would still use archers.
That is why he is saying those things. He is answering the question you asked.

yep, as long as they do damage. take away damage=useless

Nobody is proposing to take away the ability for archers to do damage. We are saying archers should do less damage than melee troops.
Have a melee troop who does the same damage as a ranged troop? Then the melee troop = almost useless.

as long as we are not talking fians, they are not overbearing sh*t.

i dont know how often i stood in a siege getting 5930280547209834570298357238572 arrows and received 4 damage for each shot on highest diff. 20 headshot damage from a sharpshooter on open battlefield with 50+armor helmet.

I have tested arrow damage to all tiers of armour, from all tiers of archers, at 30m standing still (damage is even higher when target is moving) on Realistic damage setting.
It takes a T2 archer 13 chest hits at 30m to kill someone in T6 equivalent armour. You are probably being hit at 40-50m by a T2 militia archer. This is not representative of the damage you will take most of the time.

It takes a T3/T4 archer around 4 chest hits to kill T3/T4 armour. It takes a T5/T6 archer around 5 chest hits to kill T5/T6 armour.

That damage is much, much too high.

receiving no punish for making bad decissions is just not it and this topic is just full of hot garbage.

Nobody is asking to have no punishment for bad decisions. That's a strawman.

What we want is for armour to be more balanced. Because right now 90% ranged armies are the most effective way to rack up huge casualties with minimum losses. And I wanted a medieval melee battle game, not Call of Duty.

you want less damage? lower difficulty and this topic could be closed.

I want my ranged troops to stop slaughtering the enemy at 20m before my melee troops can even get in range to fight.
I want the game to actually require me to change my tactics in order to win/get better battle results.
I want to be able to use Fians and Khan's Guards without feeling like I have cheat mode on.
I want enemy armoured nobles to feel like really threatening, hard to kill tough juggernauts.
I want high tier armour to actually be worth its cost and make me feel like I'm progressing.
I want it to not feel like beating up defenseless children when I use a bow from horseback.
I want the game to look at least remotely realistic and mediaeval, instead of my troops all having futuristic armour piercing, depleted uranium machine guns.
I want to not have to artificially, immersion-breakingly gimp myself in order to have interesting battles.

None of this is fixed by turning difficulty down.

Armour worked fine in Warband. Why can't it work in this game too? Why is that such a bad thing in your eyes?

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I agree that the garbage AI is the biggest problem in this. Even if nerfed, ranged will still out perform infantry versus enemy AI because it just lets you kill it. Likewise, your own infantry troops will still need to be coddled and supported with other units types or they will suffer too many losses to be sustainable. Even if you removed archers form the game it would be a huge problem that everything does too much damage, recruits can and will knock your higher tier infantry out because the basic performance of troops is too good and the damage is too high.

Group targeting like in RTS command mod does help infantry out a lot though by preventing any creative ideas of what your infantry attacks.
This is unrelated but I wish infantry would have much higher +carry weight and lower wages compared to other units, more +security and stuff too. There should be more reason to use them then "I liker Romans/Vikings".

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

when it "comes time to clash" archers turn useless. if you try to flank to trap infantry enemy horse get the meat.

That's why you have infantry. And archers can still be used to whittle reinforcements or even people in the back. Not to mention people running away, or enemy archers.

yea. like thats what actually an archer does lol.

yep, as long as they do damage. take away damage=useless

They can still do damage. I would not mind if shields took more damage. And they can still murder light troops. I just don't think they should be killing heavy troops so easily.

you mean unarmored units shouldnt get killed by arrows. how real is that now

I never said that, read carefully.

as long as we are not talking fians, they are not overbearing sh*t.

The reality is that any top tier unit is strong. Ranged troops are stronger than others by virtue of how powerful ranged troops are though, so they stand out.

i dont know how often i stood in a siege getting 5930280547209834570298357238572 arrows and received 4 damage for each shot on highest diff. 20 headshot damage from a sharpshooter on open battlefield with 50+armor helmet. receiving no punish for making bad decissions is just not it and this topic is just full of hot garbage.

No one is asking for that.

you want less damage? lower difficulty and this topic could be closed.

I want the enemy to take less damage, not me. Enemy armies are ****, no matter what difficulty you set. Using archers however exasperates that.

 

[five bucks]

I agree that the garbage AI is the biggest problem in this. Even if nerfed, ranged will still out perform infantry versus enemy AI because it just lets you kill it

Sure AI can be improved as well, but even if AI was perfect, ranged would still outperform melee because they both do the same damage but one does it at a distance. Armour changes are absolutely necessary.

 

[Rossa]

Armour changes are absolutely necessary.

Yes, but just changing the pierce damage reduction factor to counter ranged will create other problems, like making spears even more useless. That's why i keep mentioning RBM, they reworked a lot of things, but i think the best change is how armor works, if you get an arrow to your top tier helmet you are fine, but if it hits your face you are done. That makes it a lot more fun to couch lance those pesky nobles in the face, and allows for op armor without making top tier soldiers invincible, most hits will glance off their armor but a lucky hit will down even the most armored troops.

 

[Apocal]

Yes, but just changing the pierce damage reduction factor to counter ranged will create other problems, like making spears even more useless. That's why i keep mentioning RBM, they reworked a lot of things, but i think the best change is how armor works, if you get an arrow to your top tier helmet you are fine, but if it hits your face you are done. That makes it a lot more fun to couch lance those pesky nobles in the face, and allows for op armor without making top tier soldiers invincible, most hits will glance off their armor but a lucky hit will down even the most armored troops.

The downside is that it makes battles take much longer to play out in a game where you fight dozens or hundreds of battles in every playthrough.

 

[Rossa]

That's not a downside, it just gives the player more time to command the troops and still be able to participate in the battle. In vanilla bannerlord even flanking is kind of pointless, as you barely have time to position your troops before the enemy routs.