Captain Mode - automatic follow - stop the trolls

[Mabons]

I have to agree with @Mexican Jesus
Cav is good as it is, there are many ways to defeat cav!
Rambo cav? I love it, find the rambo parked cav and kill it all.
Guy on horse coming at me in full spead!? check out my pike (x)
Rambo cav is trying to get behind your archers? Simple!! use units that have pikes and spears, f1+f3 when the rambo gets near, watch him lose his horse and get destroyed by a mob. Most players lose their entire units because they are alone and get picked off!

You see most of the people leave this matches because, the team does not communicate or are plain dumb and do stupid things like : circle formation on C flag when the rest of the Team is fighting on A, or cav chasing other cav instead of supporting their units or cav banzai charging against a line of spears. etc.
So many ways to defeat cav and other units I guess people have lack of imagination

Again completely missing the ****ing point. Are you all this stupid?

We are not saying it's unbeatable, we are saying it's ****ing annoying.

At this point I'd have a more engaging conversation by bashing my head against a brick wall and talking to the noise it makes.

 

[ParzivaI]

I don't see this as being annoying or a issue, i have no problems with it.

 

[Mabons]

I don't see this as being annoying or a issue, i have no problems with it.

IIRC you also had no problem with stones in siege one shotting people so don't mind if I completely disregard your opinion ?

 

[AxiosXiphos]

I don't see this as being annoying or a issue, i have no problems with it.

The point I believe we are trying to make - is it shouldn't be a consideration full stop. Captains mode is about leading units of bots; not using bots as respawns.

Sure; I can spend all game beating off that lone cavalry guy. But how is that a fun or engaging game? I want to be taking part in the game; not constantly fending that random guy off my bots. I might win the game - but I sure as hell didn't have fun.

 

[ParzivaI]

What's wrong with the stones in sieges!!!! I have waited 8 years to be able to use siege weapon and rocks! I was so happy to see it introduced! Why would i rage for something i love?
IRL if there was a bunch of enemies climbing a stair i would 100% grab that massive stone and throwing it in someones head

But yeah disregard everyone else opinion!Such a nice way of thinking! because you are right and everyone else must be wrong!
I think you should create a Twitter account you would feel right at home!

 

[Henders]

What's wrong with the stones in sieges!!!! I have waited 8 years to be able to use siege weapon and rocks! I was so happy to see it introduced! Why would i rage for something i love?
IRL if there was a bunch of enemies climbing a stair i would 100% grab that massive stone and throwing it in someones head

Even if it's not the subject, I agree with you, throwing rocks at someones head is just lovely

I also enjoy killing horses and their owners as a peasant (my little pleasure). I do that in other game mods but during commander battle I want to base my gameplay on strategy rather that personal skill.

As Mabons said, Rambo si like wasp or mosquitoes, you kill one, maybe it's funny, but when you have to kill one every 5 minutes it's just annoying. Maybe you didn't play ranged much but when all your units are focusing that one guy in your back, not able to land 1 shot, I guarantee you that you will not have fun at all.

Also, the problem is not cav, it's rambo.
This kind of stuff has always been banned in Napoleonic Wars and it was easier to take care of. I don't understand why we can accept it in Bannerlord where some cav units takes +3 spear to kill.

 

[ParzivaI]

Even if it's not the subject, I agree with you, throwing rocks at someones head is just lovely

I also enjoy killing horses and their owners as a peasant (my little pleasure). I do that in other game mods but during commander battle I want to base my gameplay on strategy rather that personal skill.

As Mabons said, Rambo si like wasp or mosquitoes, you kill one, maybe it's funny, but when you have to kill one every 5 minutes it's just annoying. Maybe you didn't play ranged much but when all your units are focusing that one guy in your back, not able to land 1 shot, I guarantee you that you will not have fun at all.

Also, the problem is not cav, it's rambo.
This kind of stuff has always been banned in Napoleonic Wars and it was easier to take care of. I don't understand why we can accept it in Bannerlord where some cav units takes +3 spear to kill.

I personally don't like Rambos but if they approach me I know how to deal with them... When I play cav I always keep my bots with me, only in certain situations when i need to scout ahead i place them near friendly troops, for them to be protected, Cav is strong if used right... if not they are very week, once the horse is killed the rider is 100% dead.
Since they are low on troop count I always have to play it very well...mistakes like passing near pikes or spears and you lose 5 out of 8 troops,in just a few seconds.
So yes i think cav is good as it is... but the solution for Rambo should be better and smarter A.I that doesn't get baited by the rambo player, and orders that would actually make the difference like "inf protect archers" " rangers shoot horses"

But like i said previously when i play with my clan or with a good team, rambos have a really hard time, because we have our troops together at all times, if there is communication between players and a certain tactic... Rambo players can't do sh*t

 

[AxiosXiphos]

I personally don't like Rambos but if they approach me I know how to deal with them... When I play cav I always keep my bots with me, only in certain situations when i need to scout ahead i place them near friendly troops, for them to be protected, Cav is strong if used right... if not they are very week, once the horse is killed the rider is 100% dead.
Since they are low on troop count I always have to play it very well...mistakes like passing near pikes or spears and you lose 5 out of 8 troops,in just a few seconds.
So yes i think cav is good as it is... but the solution for Rambo should be better and smarter A.I that doesn't get baited by the rambo player, and orders that would actually make the difference like "inf protect archers" " rangers shoot horses"

But like i said previously when i play with my clan or with a good team, rambos have a really hard time, because we have our troops together at all times, if there is communication between players and a certain tactic... Rambo players can't do sh*t

Problem is A.I. can only get so good - eventually you have to look at more mechanical solutions.

 

[Henders]

but the solution for Rambo should be better and smarter A.I that doesn't get baited by the rambo player,

The thing is, you can't have very smart AI when you want +100 units on the battlefield otherwise you need Nasa servers to run your game.
Dev team can improve AI but they will not be able to develop one able to deal with every situation without beeing over powered.
That's why I think that the best solution for the Rambo problem is the one proposed by OP.
The solution where you deal less damages when you are far from your units is not immersive/realistic enough in my point of view.

 

[ParzivaI]

I also want to point out the reason rambos have such a easy way destoying archers is because the Devs decided to remove the very weapon that could defend this units "pikes and spears" because just a few months ago almost all raged units could pick the perk Pike or spears.. I remember i would bring pikes with my Sharpshooters, even if a cav passed closed my bots would kill him easly.. now they removed this essencial perks that make archers easy prey and this is the main reason why so many people do rambo with cav. and wipe out your entire archer units because your archers can't do nothing about it
Maybe the solution is revert this changes.. since this "rapid fire perk and "faster release perks are a absolute joke" 99% of the players will pick stronger bows and " extra arrows over those perks... idk why they removed it in the first place
The solution i can give right now is either give back archer units pikes and spears to defend themselfs or make A.I less dumb.

 

[AxiosXiphos]

I also want to point out the reason rambos have such a easy way destoying archers is because the Devs decided to remove the very weapon that could defend this units "pikes and spears" because just a few months ago almost all raged units could pick the perk Pike or spears.. I remember i would bring pikes with my Sharpshooters, even if a cav passed closed my bots would kill him easly.. now they removed this essencial perks that make archers easy prey and this is the main reason why so many people do rambo with cav. and wipe out your entire archer units because your archers can't do nothing about it
Maybe the solution is revert this changes.. since this "rapid fire perk and "faster release perks are a absolute joke" 99% of the players will pick stronger bows and " extra arrows over those perks... idk why they removed it in the first place
The solution i can give right now is either give back archer units pikes and spears to defend themselfs or make A.I less dumb.

Or... just actually fix the issue rather then trying to fix issues around it. No matter how smart you make the A.i or how many spears you give them it won't fix it. Again today I had someone on my team doing it. Not only did it lose us the round (as it was basically 5v6) but we then had to wait 10 minutes for him to time waste....

I've started reporting players for inappropriate gameplay for doing it.

 

[CaNpoG]

So let me get something straight:
Nobody here is complaining that it's "impossible to counter" or "too hardcore/not noob friendly" . Of course I can kill a horseman if he comes at me. You don't even need a spear if he's not too good. It's the AI which is the problem here. The whole point of ramboing is to go for the enemy bots. So it doesn't really matter how good you are at 1v1 because it's not about how good you are at fighting, because the rambo will always avoid you at all costs.

The problems are these with different classes:

Infantry: You have your troops in a line, they can't protect themselves against enemy cav players and you can't protect them all because you are slow as infantry. Sometimes the bots might hit with their spears but that's only if the enemy cav player is really bad.

Archers: Heavy cav horses can take probably 3 hits into the face and like 6-10 hits to the body from a bow because they have so much armor. The rider can take about 3 hits to the head from lesser bows and won't die to 1 hit even with an arbalest probably.
Even if you're a good shot, you won't hit them all the time. This makes it a problem because even if you kill or dismount them pretty fast (by hitting all arrows) you still lose a couple of your squad, maybe more. All heavy archer squads have 11 troops (except sharpshooter with 10), so that's a big percentage of your squad already dead. Then you have to do that all again 6 more times. You see the point.
Even if the cav doesn't get too many kills, it's at least many minutes of the archers not being able to fire well at the enemy. It's completely unbalanced.

Cav: You have so few troops, which are extremely vulnerable to rambos because they simply can't hit the fast moving rambo with their spear/lance while they're, let's say, following you. Again, it's not hard to avoid a single enemy player as a rambo when you have a wide group of bots to hit on any side you want.

Solution(s) for all this:

- Make the AI better (hard and not very likely)
- Make horses have way less armor/health so they won't tank 10 arrows each time (maybe not the best solution)
- Use the Warband's/NW's solution to make you deal no damage if you're far away from your bots (a good solution which is proven to work)
- Make your bots automatically start following you if you are too far away. You are never far away from your squad as other than as rambo cav anyway (also a good solution)

This honestly needs to be fixed, because it just forces players to play around this unintended, dumb "meta" instead of actually commanding bots and using actual tactics to win.

there is a solution, get better at cav yourself or take someone in your stack that can play it. Cav is my main unit of choice and ramboing is often an efficient method to use. You would have to be a moron to ride your full cav unit into a spear infantry shield wall but low and behold I see most people that take cav in the game do exactly that. These people need to learn how to play the unit, it's a support role.... everyone is just hoping their horses will work like Rohan's at Minas Tirith and plough through an entire enemy infantry unit, knocking them over without casaulties... It's not how it works. Even with infantry sometimes it's wise to leave your men slightly behind so you can scout ahead or cap without casualties. Changing the AI to follow you ALL the time will impact gameplay so much the worse and possibly even make cavalry useless. Get better at cav and stop whinging

Not a surprising comment coming from a player who rambos every game with his clan.

 

[AxiosXiphos]

So let me get something straight:
Nobody here is complaining that it's "impossible to counter" or "too hardcore/not noob friendly" . Of course I can kill a horseman if he comes at me. You don't even need a spear if he's not too good. It's the AI which is the problem here. The whole point of ramboing is to go for the enemy bots. So it doesn't really matter how good you are at 1v1 because it's not about how good you are at fighting, because the rambo will always avoid you at all costs.

The problems are these with different classes:

Infantry: You have your troops in a line, they can't protect themselves against enemy cav players and you can't protect them all because you are slow as infantry. Sometimes the bots might hit with their spears but that's only if the enemy cav player is really bad.

Archers: Heavy cav horses can take probably 3 hits into the face and like 6-10 hits to the body from a bow because they have so much armor. The rider can take about 3 hits to the head from lesser bows and won't die to 1 hit even with an arbalest probably.
Even if you're a good shot, you won't hit them all the time. This makes it a problem because even if you kill or dismount them pretty fast (by hitting all arrows) you still lose a couple of your squad, maybe more. All heavy archer squads have 11 troops (except sharpshooter with 10), so that's a big percentage of your squad already dead. Then you have to do that all again 6 more times. You see the point.
Even if the cav doesn't get too many kills, it's at least many minutes of the archers not being able to fire well at the enemy. It's completely unbalanced.

Cav: You have so few troops, which are extremely vulnerable to rambos because they simply can't hit the fast moving rambo with their spear/lance while they're, let's say, following you. Again, it's not hard to avoid a single enemy player as a rambo when you have a wide group of bots to hit on any side you want.

Solution(s) for all this:

- Make the AI better (hard and not very likely)
- Make horses have way less armor/health so they won't tank 10 arrows each time (maybe not the best solution)
- Use the Warband's/NW's solution to make you deal no damage if you're far away from your bots (a good solution which is proven to work)
- Make your bots automatically start following you if you are too far away. You are never far away from your squad as other than as rambo cav anyway (also a good solution)

This honestly needs to be fixed, because it just forces players to play around this unintended, dumb "meta" instead of actually commanding bots and using actual tactics to win.


Not a surprising comment coming from a player who rambos every game with his clan.

This.

 

[Mabons]

Not a surprising comment coming from a player who rambos every game with his clan.

Interesting.

 

[Henders]

I just bump this to say that I just had a game against 4 rambos with Vlandia cav (3/4 were from clans). The game last more than 40 minutes and I joined the 2nd round...
Basically the game was: we capture 2 points, put our units agains a wall and wait. When you managed to stop one of them, they were able to run away with 2/3 of their HP.
Even if we won (3/2), that was everything but fun.

 

[Tulag]

I support this thread.
Fed up with those who hide their unit in map and fight alone. (It's generally cavalry)

 

[Zarthas]

I just bump this to say that I just had a game against 4 rambos with Vlandia cav (3/4 were from clans). The game last more than 40 minutes and I joined the 2nd round...
Basically the game was: we capture 2 points, put our units agains a wall and wait. When you managed to stop one of them, they were able to run away with 2/3 of their HP.
Even if we won (3/2), that was everything but fun.

This is kind of what people are missing. Yes, I can beat your rambo cav foolishness if the team is paying attention. No, I don't really want to sit in a corner with pikes until time runs out.

I don't think there's any way to get around the fact that the game would be more fun if people couldn't turn formations of archers away from what they should be shooting at, and solo lance AI bots for 10 minutes. If there were another solution I'd be all for that too, but I haven't seen one.

I think it groks thematically that your troops need you to lead them and won't just chill in a corner by themselves somewhere waiting for their turn.




My actual preference would be to have your troops start to straight up desert you if you go too far away from them, but I don't think people will like that either.
I think an alternative would be that your troops have the "Sergeants Take Command" thing applied to them if you wander off.

 

[SMB4122]

@FARIAS puts it well.

Rambo cav? I love it, find the rambo parked cav and kill it all.

There is a clear and simple counter to the rambo that any team paying attention will use. Not to mention you can "turn to enemy" and ignor the rambo if you know how to control your men. Improving this skill is part of the difficulty curve of being a captain.

The risky play of putting one cav out there alone presents an alternative counter to the archer other than just rushing with shields. The single cav player usually dies, often without getting any kills, because they are meant to be a distraction. They allow a unit with high DPS but low armor to reach the archers, or let heavy inf rush with out shield wall. A feit otherwise impossible with out catastrophic losses.

This keeps the game from being a simple rock, paper, scissors for what unit kills what. Where the strategy is guseing what comp the opposing team is going to bring rather than how and where they are going to use what they bring.

My actual preference would be to have your troops start to straight up desert you if you go too far away from them, but I don't think people will like that either.

I think an alternative would be that your troops have the "Sergeants Take Command" thing applied to them if you wander off.

That said I do find each of these to be interesting alternatives. they would have to be tailored to each map though as a large distance on Dariad is small on Jawalli.

 

[Mabons]

There is a clear and simple counter to the rambo that any team paying attention will use.

And another one completely misses the point. We have stated REPEATEDLY that it's easy enough to kill or wound the guy enough to leave my troops alone, but I'm supposed to be there to command my squad and co-operate with my team instead of fighting other players, there is gee, I dunno, EVERY OTHER GAME MODE IN BANNERLORD for that to happen.

It's annoying, it's not the point, you even admit it's just cheesing the AI. Captain mode has some actual potential to be good but the longer ya'll go on defending this particular gimmick...

Just look at this clip and tell me it's not a little bit annoying for the crossbow player to essentially lose most of his men before a fight even happens because of 2 player controlled cav (and these guys are BAAAD) destroying his troops with no investment at all. The AI is helpless but you all don't help the game by abusing it.

 

[SMB4122]

Yes, we've all seen a clip of glitched out AI. That has been happening for a wile with all unit types where they some times just don't attack. There is a broader issue not pertinent to this debate going on there.

Archers clearly have a fire delay to prevent them from being perfect shots with no delay between loading and firing, and the players were gaming that by turning the archers. But think about what happens if we remove that, archers essentially would have machine guns. Perhaps a change could be made that if they have been holding for a certain time they fire but that opens new ways the cheese the AI.

Never the less what I see in this clip is an inexperienced captain's reaction. They don't control their units fire to concentrate an attack. They single themselves out as a target by not acting in formation. They wait until their own line has been agroed and broken before charging. The only grey area in their play was waiting until the courser was stopped long enough for the xbowmen to shoot them down.

Finally, we come to the question of effectiveness. We can establish that the xbowmen did not

essentially lose most of his men

only one is seen dying in the clip but we can assume an additional one fell before the end of the engagement to be generous. Considering most cav units have around 8 troops and 2 fought here, that would make 1/4 of a unit coming down to bear on the archers. The archers had 12 troops and loss only 2 men. In other words 1/6 of the archers were lost. The archers would continue this trend until the cav is wiped.

You have suggested that a change needs to be made to make the rambo strategy ineffective or unusable. but it already is ineffective against decent players. A captain is meant to command their units in the most effective manner. Usually charging headlong with your cav is not the most effective way to play. Players quickly learned this and have been trying different forms of play.

I understand where your coming from with wanting the captain to stay with the unit. There are plenty of other games out there that operate that way and do so well. I'm just asking you to consider its implications on the broader scope of game play. The game mode is more unique with the ability to split from your units and have them fulfilling other objectives.