Bannerlord Armor System as a bottleneck for tactical gameplay

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Of course there are always ways to get around AI strategy -but thats not really the point I was making was it..
The point is that the fix you propose won't work as a counter to ranged troops being superior. Quite the opposite, because the AI reacting to flanking forces it shouldn't be capable of seeing helps dilute their killing power.

IME, not enough to matter to the outcome, except in the margins.

Cavalry...esp light cavalry? Or even mounted archers. Problem is difficulty in getting them to attack archers.
Cavalry in the current state of the game are nearly useless to the task. I can't speak to hruza's experiences but you need a full party slamming into the archers to get good effects because the overwhelming majority whiff. That counter is more expensive, less sustainable and requires more troops to function.

Mounted archers are part of the problem, not a solution.

At any rate, a solution is quite clear: just buff armor until it bounces arrows non-stop. Instantly you have a niche for other ranged units, melee reasserts its primacy in BL's supposedly medieval tactics and party composition of "literally nothing but archers/horse archers" suddenly has an actual downside besides being boring.
 
That's a completely different issue, which I think is in most people's want list:

The ability to tell your groupings to attack specific enemy groupings.

I wasn't responding to you. I responded to Apocal and my comment is completely on point with reference to his comment.
 
I wasn't responding to you. I responded to Apocal and my comment is completely on point with reference to his comment.
Matters not. I'm talking to the room.

I have a suspicion, that solving the unit target issue would actually solve a lot of our possible armour issues.

Cavalry charge all over the show right now, it's no wonder they all get shot out by archers. If they were focused, and couched their lances... archers wouldn't have time to shoot them.
 
Armor is painfully pathetic in Bannerlord. There is no payoff for spending those hundreds and hundreds of K's whatsoever on armor that makes you 5% less squishy than before.

Armor protection goes up to 80-90% (look for exact formulas posted out there) depending on type of the damage (with armor been the most effective against cut). That's not squishy.

Archers are absolutely overperforming in Bannerlord. A shortbow would do absolutely nothing to a big chest of lamellar, plate or even mail.

And what would sword or spear do to big chest of lamellar? That's right, absolutely nothing.

What you don't seem to understand is that armor model in Bannerlord does not represent just penetration, it also represents that armor does not cover everything and it have weak spots. Big chest lamellar will do absolutely nothing against arrow hitting an arm pit next to it.

The Agincourt scenario was volley after volley after volley of arrows hitting weakspots on vulnerable enemies.

And your point is that armors in Bannerlord does not have a weak spots?

If you want to get fancy, introduce weakspot zones on characters. Neck, joints, etc. - That is where the damage should be.

Weak spots are already introduced. It's called abstraction. When arrow hits hit box of say torso and torso armor reduces damage by X%, that factors both penetrations of the armor AND the weak spots.

You can't have more complex damage model because it would slow game to the standstill. It have to be reasonably simple and abstract. Calculating coverage in the damage model would require to trace hit boxes of not just different body parts, it would require to trace hit boxes of individual armor pieces. And that would mean dozens of hit boxes per simple piece of armor. Every single piece of armor in the game. That's not reasonable in the game with potentially hundreds of AI bots on the battlefield.
 
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Just in case you are not aware, there's a few thread in this forum that were brought up on the subject.



Second one in particular I think hits the nail on the head and offers some solutions to the problem. It's not just ranged damage, the overall damage model is kind of bonkers at this moment (see the second thread I linked for more details).

Good news is, devs are aware of this. For now we don't know if this is working as intended or not though.

JOINT HURTBOXES and ARMOR HURTBOXES: an armor system that provide a way to balance factions warfare and make more deep the combat system(suggestions)

As you can see this thread is about the armor system and specifically I use a very different approach than the thread you mentioned.
In my opinion, varying the damage reduction formula as a function of armor value is useful BUT NOT ENOUGH.
Applying just that change only tends to make heavy armor wearers invincible or tediously tough regardless of your ability to target their weak spots, as the current armor system has few hurtboxes and virtually all of them covered.
It also DOES NOT SOLVE 2 PROBLEMS:
1) the convenience of the ballerina style
2) the convenience of spam attacks.

In the thread of which I insert the link I suggest a substantial modification of the armor system and that does not go in contrast with the thread you mentioned, on the contrary it synergises.

In the thread I tend to deal with these problems and, in my opinion, to solve them:
1) convenience of the ballerina style
2) convenience of spam attacks
3) paper armor
4) balance of ranged combat
5) without shield, two-handed weapon VS archer / skirmisher
6) cavalry VS archers / skirmishers
7) balance between factions (khuzait specifically)
 
The point is that the fix you propose won't work as a counter to ranged troops being superior. Quite the opposite, because the AI reacting to flanking forces it shouldn't be capable of seeing helps dilute their killing power.

What? Maybe you should try rephrasing that as that sentence makes little sense. Its ridiculous to even argue the point - although i see you like to try and argue any and every point - that troops knowing where all enemies at all times makes for better combat lending itself to more realistic results. Please tell me on what strange planet do forces all know where all their enemies are on a battlefield at all times and ill entertain the thought right after booking a Tesla flight there. Its simply foolish to advocate for lacking such a basic component of warfare. To your point (which i still cant decipher) -at the end of the day it all boils down to implementation - that is how well AI are programmed to react AFTER enemies are revealed to their troops. But there is absolutely nothing realistic about an All knowing AI location in a strategy game - so to sit in a forum and discuss realistic or historical strategy tactics is utter ridiculousness.
 
What? Maybe you should try rephrasing that as that sentence makes little sense. Its ridiculous to even argue the point - although i see you like to try and argue any and every point - that troops knowing where all enemies at all times makes for better combat lending itself to more realistic results.
My post wasn't about realism. It was about Bannerlord.

Archers turning their formation to engage troops that they magically know are coming makes them perform worse, not better. That's a net plus right now because they kill too much, too quickly.
 
My post wasn't about realism. It was about Bannerlord.

My post that you replied to although mentioning the archers was about the futility of people discussing realistic or historical tactics when a key component of real warfare is missing.
Archers turning their formation to engage troops that they magically know are coming makes them perform worse, not better. That's a net plus right now because they kill too much, too quickly.

What a murderously atrocious reason to approve a result. So yes, please also add magical unicorn horns to Cav to make them more effective against melee. The results do not justify the means.

Like i said -its implementation of HOW the AI would react to known enemies that marks the improvement.

Its silly having these discussions with you -i remember you had the same "argue in the weeds" responses to implementing dynamic faction policies to counter snowballing. You lose sight of the meta while arguing over pedantic, unrealistic and trivial points while losing sight of how realistic dynamism would improve the game and let problems unfold naturally.

Ill let you enjoy you being you -go ahead and argue why you dont now *grabs popcorn
 
You lose sight of the meta while arguing over pedantic, unrealistic and trivial points
...
...it doesn't matter because being outflanked doesn't have the any morale effect on the archers. They'll calmly turn, loose arrows and then dive into melee.

Usually win too, because of the way the unit skills build by tier.
...
At any rate, a solution is quite clear: just buff armor until it bounces arrows non-stop. Instantly you have a niche for other ranged units, melee reasserts its primacy in BL's supposedly medieval tactics and party composition of "literally nothing but archers/horse archers" suddenly has an actual downside besides being boring.
I'm not the one losing sight of the meta here.
 
...

...

I'm not the one losing sight of the meta here.
Nice bait and switch.
You chose to respond to my criticism of lack of realistic battle tactics because the game lacks any proper los mechanic. If you felt that was off topic then simply ignore. But no, a contrarian like yourself simply can’t resist “acktually...”

but the fact is your argument for not including a proper los system -“would make archer situation worse “ is flawed to its core you know it and I know it and should you choose to pursue that debate rather than engage in your circular maze of logic, well I’d be more than happy to engage
 
but the fact is your argument for not including a proper los system
My argument is that including a proper LoS system won't fix the problem of archers being OP because they'd still be able to kill enough dudes to consistently win the melee. Buffing armor will fix it though, and this isn't something that I just imagined but actually proven by multiple mods.
 
My argument is that including a proper LoS system won't fix the problem of archers being OP because they'd still be able to kill enough dudes to consistently win the melee. Buffing armor will fix it though, and this isn't something that I just imagined but actually proven by multiple mods.
Your utterly ignoring that with an implemented new los system must include new AI subroutines for path finding and reactionary System. Obviously no one is going to design an los detection system without the accompanying AI reactions. With said new actions it would absolutely be possible to use ambush, stealth approach and concealed troops to counter an archer force - as was done through out history as opposed to an utterly unrealistic mechanic we have in place. Arguing you have figured out ways to counter archers on an unrealistic environment doesn’t better your position.

Really this is an open shut case on line of site would only enhance a military strategy game - you really argue just to argue some times
 
Your utterly ignoring that with an implemented new los system must include new AI subroutines for path finding and reactionary System. Obviously no one is going to design an los detection system without the accompanying AI reactions.
I'm not ignoring it; you didn't say anything about it until now and I'm not a mind-reader. At any rate, I don't think TW is going for any kind of serious overhaul. They already said no to increasing the variety of morale effects. The best we can (likely) do is get them to tweak armor.
 
I'm not ignoring it; you didn't say anything about it until now and I'm not a mind-reader. At any rate, I don't think TW is going for any kind of serious overhaul. They already said no to increasing the variety of morale effects. The best we can (likely) do is get them to tweak armor.
It should be apparent that if they were to make a move as big as finally adding a Line of Sight mechanic -AI reactions and strategies are implied. It would be utter foolishness not to. That said a better argument you could have presented against me would have been:

A: Theres no guarantee that they have the AI developmental capability to get their bots to "behave better" with this new addition. In theory it could make them worse, far far worse if they dont better develop their subroutines. Like Arma antiTanker AI trying to sneak up on a tank from a good angle only to get right next to the tank and pull out his rifle instead of his AT weapon -AI can go bad.

But its so essential to strategy/military gaming -again my point in context was its just silly to compare Bannerlord battles to historic battles as that key ingredient is missing so there is literally no parity -at all.


B. 2nd argument would be even if they did a good job with AI subroutines to a new LOS system - it would undoubtedly be very expensive per unit ie trying to locate enemies, processing what to do about various enemies in both known and suspected locations -this stuff is VERY pricey CPU-wise. So theres that.
 
We tried to make armor and damage as realistic as possible based on available experimental and historical data in RBM and my conclussion is that something between our mod and vanilla would be probably acceptable by most of the community. Something like twice as much guaranteed (blunt factor) damage for some weapons like swords and arrows in comparison to RBM.
 
Armor protection goes up to 80-90% (look for exact formulas posted out there) depending on type of the damage (with armor been the most effective against cut). That's not squishy.
It's evidently not enough.

I used RTS camera to play as a peasant and I was able to do significant amounts of damage to absolutely everything. A bonk over the head would take out the majority of health for every single enemy I hit.

My peasant can do decent damage to even cataphracts. I dont even know if cataphracts have weakspots exploitable by peasant weaponry.
Even putting aside my personal input, I regularly see high tier troops get killed by recruits and peasants. Its just not right at all.

Its basically not an argument to suggest that armor is functioning as it should, because its apparently that it isnt, and makes the game a hell of alot less fun and less balanced as a result.
And what would sword or spear do to big chest of lamellar? That's right, absolutely nothing.
Balance and gameplay. For realism, in the hands of a skilled user, at point blank range swords and spears would have a higher chance of hitting weakpoints in the armor than stray arrows being shot hundreds of meters away.

But im getting sick of arguing about realism. Bannerlord is not a realistic game. Realism should act as a special touch or afterthought than be the basis for making a fun video game thats supposed to be fun.
What you don't seem to understand is that armor model in Bannerlord does not represent just penetration, it also represents that armor does not cover everything and it have weak spots. Big chest lamellar will do absolutely nothing against arrow hitting an arm pit next to it.
News to my ears. Where exactly is this implied?

And god damn these arrows must be hitting hitspots every single time then. In that case I cant recall a single time where arrows actually landed in the uparmored areas.
You can't have more complex damage model because it would slow game to the standstill. It have to be reasonably simple and abstract. Calculating coverage in the damage model would require to trace hit boxes of not just different body parts, it would require to trace hit boxes of individual armor pieces. And that would mean dozens of hit boxes per simple piece of armor. Every single piece of armor in the game. That's not reasonable in the game with potentially hundreds of AI bots on the battlefield.
Then they should just universally increase the effectiveness of armor like how everyone wants them to.
 
My peasant can do decent damage to even cataphracts. I dont even know if cataphracts have weakspots exploitable by peasant weaponry.
Even putting aside my personal input, I regularly see high tier troops get killed by recruits and peasants. Its just not right at all.
Arms and legs are less armored than head and body for cataphracts. Some peasant weapons do pierce and blunt damage, like the pitchfork and blacksmith hammer.
 
It's evidently not enough.

"Not enough" is not objective qualifier.

I used RTS camera to play as a peasant and I was able to do significant amounts of damage to absolutely everything. A bonk over the head would take out the majority of health for every single enemy I hit.

I have already told you that exact formulas of damage are out there and damage reduction by armor goes up to 80-90%. If 20% of damage of a rusty hatchet is "significant" then we may be using different definitions of what "significant" means.

My peasant can do decent damage to even cataphracts. I dont even know if cataphracts have weakspots exploitable by peasant weaponry.
Even putting aside my personal input, I regularly see high tier troops get killed by recruits and peasants. Its just not right at all.

I want to see you showing a single example when high tier AI trooper gets killed by a recruit of the same class one on one. You can't, because it's impossible.

High tier trooper been killed when swarmed by peasants, that's perfectly reasonable and expected.

Its basically not an argument to suggest that armor is functioning as it should, because its apparently that it isnt, and makes the game a hell of alot less fun and less balanced as a result.

Earth been flat is also apparent. Yet completely wrong.

Balance and gameplay. For realism, in the hands of a skilled user, at point blank range swords and spears would have a higher chance of hitting weakpoints in the armor than stray arrows being shot hundreds of meters away.

At a point blank range the defender have higher chance to cover his weak spots and face attack from best angle against blows that he can see, compared to arrows, that he mostly can't.

News to my ears. Where exactly is this implied?

Where is it not implied.

And god damn these arrows must be hitting hitspots every single time then. In that case I cant recall a single time where arrows actually landed in the uparmored areas.

80% damage reduction means that only 2 out of 10 arrows found a weak spot or penetrated. That's very far from every single time.

Then they should just universally increase the effectiveness of armor like how everyone wants them to.

Not everyone.
 
I agree with the premise of buffing armor and changing how the DR calculations work in a way to give higher into the 90% bracket, especially for higher tier armor. This should also be expanded to more hitboxes than there are now on the skeleton - someone had linked a few suggestion threads around there. Where you should get more damage dealt to you armpit / shoulder area than something like the center of your torso. For those of you familiar, Asheron's Call 1, a late 90's MMO had this concept with specific armor pieces covering those areas (groin, upper leg/thigh, shoulder, wrist, etc.) - not advocating for adding *more* armor pieces just that there is video game precedence for it.

I believe it was @Apocal and a few others who brought up LOS - and that would go a long way too. That would require some overhaul and probably crafting a new class in the codebase to account for it, but the omniscience of you as a player (hitting ALT) and the AI makes it hard to effectively flank an enemy force. Won't go into that further, but that would be a game changer. Only way to really flank now is on certain maps scenes where there is an defilade position you can just chunk behind and counter charge up.

While not totally related to armor, another thing TW should explore is in-battle cav speed buffs. It is really hard to get your cav grouped meaningfully and work up enough speed in most scenes to close the distance on archer formations. And without heavy cav, they'll just shoot your horses to pieces (which *should* happen). That and adding in meaningful trample + shock and morale effects would help counteract archers. I am more than fine with them being powerful units that can chew your infantry and cav up - but the foil to them should be speed and violence of action. And please - can we get rid of the ability to stop a charging war hose by tapping it with a pitchfork? Couching / bracing? Sure - but getting a violent charge into a loose infantry formation does not work right now.
 
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