Combat in multiplayer feels very slow and unenjoyable

[Schoi]

I took a week off from the game and now I just played a couple matches and noticed that the swing speed / combat speed is very slow. Swinging a 1h with and without a shield felt like the equivalent of swinging a 2h great maul from Warband's singleplayer.

I attempted to do some "hilt spams" with a fast 1h and actually failed even with using correct footwork against some noob tdm and siege players

2 weeks ago I was easily able to do this, but whatever happened recently to the swing speed is in my opinion absolutely terrible. I have trouble effectively feinting or doing any type of special move / spin. This is very disappointing to those of us who have been playing for 7+ years.

To add onto that, of my 86 steam friends who own Bannerlord through steam and were excited for it, only 3 are now still playing (4.65% of remaining players). The multiplayer is simply put, bad.

One of my friends, said the following :
"Whatever remain of the mp community will give a backlash to TW. TW will rollback the change and reintroduce it again next month. The sad part in this, people would have been happy with a reskin of Warband mp"

The singleplayer combat feels 10x better than the multiplayer combat , and is so much more like warband.

Another note, as of right now the game's steam playerbase is averaging at 15,000 while in the beginning it had 210,000. (7.14% of players remaining).

Warband's steam playerbase stayed consistent for years, and actually increased as time went on, because it was simply put, an amazing game, an amazing singleplayer experience, with an amazing fast paced and skillful multiplayer experience.

Sure this is early access, but you're killing the hope of this game for me and many other people.

If you want to tell me I've not played enough matches and I don't know what I'm talking about well you're wrong there, I've got over 1,000 multiplayer matches played and over 800 wins at the time of this post.

I believe it to be very possible soon the Bannerlord playerbase will actually be less than Warband's playerbase.

Feel free to add anything to the thread.

 

[Yukmouth++]

As a Veteran Warband player as well, i do agree with everything you are saying, and Taleworlds need to make a big shift when it comes to the combat system. The maps, games modes, classes and all that are all unimportant right now. The combat mechanics are absolutely destroying the gameplay experience right now. The solo queue skirmish experience is all about Archer + Cavalry spam, playing infantry is basicly a death sentence. Clan battles are all about spamming heavy armoured infantry and hitting people in the back, because the combat system is so poor and unskillful, you'd rather just avoid 1v1 situations. You don't see ANYONE play 2h weapons in competitive games, because of the block delay being so atrocious, its impossible to protect yourself from being 1h weapon spammed = starting from the second blow it becomes unblockable, the only thing to do is run away like a wuss and look for someone's back to hit in. 2h is also completely unreliable because throwing weapons are ridiculously OP (1 or 2 shots for a free kill).

I have tried the beloved TDM server today and i now understand why it's so populated = it avoids the combat mechanisms made by taleworlds. There is no dueling or actual honorable fighting in there, it's just a chaotic mess of people hitting each other's back, most people dont even try to block, they just spam hits left and right. The poor combat doesnt show on TDM as much as on skirmishes.

 

[Greedalicious]

Not only is playing infantry a death sentence, but its also the least satisfying class. It doesnt make sense for me to play infantry and be in the thick of combat and then do 20 damage average per hit, when a cavalry can do 1200 damage in 3 seconds, and stay safe while doing it. The most satisfying kills I've made so far has been throwing weapons and archer kills. Landing a good bonk with a mace still feels nice, but not worth it.
In warband I'd run into 5 enemies with my 1 handed to see how many I can kill, if I was good enough I'd kill them all. In bannerlord thats incredibly unlikely to happen, as my own skill isnt as relevant anymore. If they have 2-3 two handed I have zero chance of winning, because their movement speed is so much greater than mine, I cant properly weave between enemies, and I cant make them teamhit eachother (and if its skirmish and I make them teamhit, the damage is so low they barerly flinch anyway) so my other option is to run away. Well the two handed guys will always catch up to you, so running just buys you a few seconds, maybe your teammates are nearby, maybe not (probably not.) I cant reliably block either because of the block delay, if the game wants you to die, you'll die.
So the game becomes a who has the bigger ball of players to run down the rest, which is boring to play. On TDM I play the cheapest infantry class with 1handed and see how well I do, on the dock map fighting anyone in a 1v1 for more than 3 seconds is impossible, as cavalry is bound to knock you down, or archers shoot you up. Or someone randomly spawns right next to you with javelins and boom. I'd love to see statistics on what weapons have the highest kill rates etc on each gamemode, would be interesting to see how many die by a 1 handed on TDM.

 

[Squirrelfart]

Warband's combat had tempo and timing, where a combat engagement was more like an esoteric weird interplay of knowing when it's your turn to attack or defend and exploiting advantages in timing, rhythm, tempo, footwork, mindsets and your opponent's playstyle.

I feel like Bannerlord is completely missing the basic, most enjoyable aspect of Warband combat, which was not only responsive controls and player control, but also the basic tempo that could be achieved based on the hit-block-hit-block pattern being both extremely intuitive and flowing, but also relatively deep, complex, and engaging. It isn't enough to just have a hit-block-hit-block rhythm in a Mount and Blade game, the tempo and rhythm needs to be malleable to the best of the player ability, and the player's control over their character and their actions (and as a result, the pace of the fight and tempo itself) should be responsive - or you get shield duels in Bannerlord, the most boring thing since sliced white bread, where nobody holds attacks or mixes up their timing, you feel like you're swinging your attacks through mud, and the shields take forever to break.

Meanwhile, a 2h duel or a shieldless duel doesn't even have a hit-block rhythm because it's literally faster to feint an attack and release it than it is to reactively block it. And the movement is so fast in the forward and diagonal directions but slow as a snail in the backwards direction.

So you have two duelists infinitely kiting each other trying to outrange each other while spinning in circles, and the moment you get into range of a sword swing, you're put into this horrible multi-layer guessing game nobody wants to play because feints are so deceptive and fast and blocking is so slow so you try (basically guess) to block and back the away out of range because getting hit is way too easy when you're in range and there's zero incentive to engage in a back-and-forth engagement (not to mention it'll feel like ass with all the stances, weird delays and everything) when moving away is also super easy.

I definitely bet some dude has already mastered blocking every attack or something, but as a casual, "sort-of-good-at-the-game" Warband player, Bannerlord's combat system makes me want to play something else.

Basically, if anyone's ever fought a 1v1 engagement in WB and you spend the first couple of seconds sizing each other up and trying to outrange each other before you get your hands dirty and do the whole back-and-forth stuff, imagine that, except for the whole duel and you're also sliding all over the place and you feel like you're swinging through mud. That's Bannerlord combat.

 

[Schoi]

Thanks for the feedback guys

Too bad not even custom servers are out where a mod can fix the trash.

 

[Lord Bryggan]

I recently tried MP again after a fairly long break. I do use a two hander whenever I can, or try pick one up, since as it's mostly cheap shots I want to do as much damage as I can.

I have adjusted my game play a lot to the new "style" of fighting, and have been able to defeat multiple opponents with footwork, hard hits and plenty of luck. I usually find myself on the top of the scoreboard, and am usually the top infantry player (but nowhere near the K/D of the skilled cav players).

But it's not fun. In Warband I was a mediocre player since I don't seem to have the reflexes or mouse control that the good players have, but every fight was an adrenaline rush.

In every Bannerlord scrap, fighting feels like a slog. It's slow and annoying, and the only reason I do well is that my lack of skills in Warband taught me how to go for the cheap shots.

But I'd much rather be on the bottom of the scoreboard and have fun than be a top player and feel exhausted after.

 

[Tovgiv]

With updates, the game is becoming increasingly unstable.

 

[Schoi]

lol

lol

game is less responsive than my ass hairs

 

[WhiteEyedSh4rk]

I have a feeling you will be reluctantly pleased very soon. ?

 

[Biyonik]

I have a feeling we will be disappointed very soon, but lets see

 

[Plumbo_the_Norman]

lol

lol

game is less responsive than my ass hairs

How you managed to play for 435 hours ill never know i made it to 77, which is alot more than most of my m8's on steam/ex crpgers. it also means i actually put more time into OKAM, then Bannerlord. always thought d3 would be the biggest disappointment in gaming, but d3 was made by a diff company than d2, its understandable. Bannerlord is not, its simply unacceptable, everything from the clunkyness, the delays, and overall lack of control/ability to take on multiple people if you're skilled enough, its all a step back downgrade from warband. particularly the MP, which is a massive slap in the face for long time players. some of us dont need to ever play any SP mod again, we have been doing this since Zendar, its the exact same fomula since the original, what was truly amazing about warband wasnt the SP mods, alot of then were copies of older mods already played. it wasnt the graphics, or new combat which was a massive improvement over the original M&B...it was the multiplayer, finally you could fight other humans! and it used a CS style loadout itstead of classes. and then mods came that added sooo much more to MP. also, name me one SP mod that was sooo popular Taleworlds used their idea for a DLC? we wouldnt have Napoleonic without mountandmusket

i honestly thought thats what was taking bannerlord so long, the co-op campaign. 8 years later they couldnt do what a handful of ameteurs built in 8 months. i speant 8 years defending Taleworlds, on the ground that NOONE could replicate / improve warband combat...FFS even Taleworlds cant, the age old Reapy duel vids completely **** on any Bannerlord video ive seen. Warband is thee only melee game out there where it felt like the devs actually owned/used those items IRL, instead of every other medieval game out there that treats a sword like a solid 10 pound iron bar. the 2hs/1hs the diff feeling in the length wieght the different feel between a (an?) 1h axe vs 1 hand sword and how they worked and could be used, when you master footwork, teamplay, timing, etc you notice appreciate and understand even the most minute difference in stats. Bannerlord is all iron bars, so fing lame.

sigh i still type waay too much, this is such a disappointing shame, i could go on about it forever, Warband is my fav game of all time/most played, and imo one of thee greatest games ever invented, there is good reason the game was played for so long, very few games stay on the most played page for many years, even less are overwhelmingly positive, almost none had prank negative reviews like "gets boring fast" sincerely 9000 hours player etc, do taleworlds not understand why people played it so long, loved it soo much, was it all really 9000 hours worth of SP mods for 4-8 years everyday STRAIGHT?!?!

i gotta stop typing, i still have warband, but the mods died. some thought they could build their own warband, some expect bannerlord to be a better warband and closed up shop, we ALL thought bannerlord would reunite us. and it hasnt. warband will always be king, but only king due to its golden era, and the tournement/mods Taleworlds themselves did not build. ripstrat4 long live the 2013-2015 era, we will never see its like again.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

people would have been happy with a reskin of Warband mp

No

 

[Shemaforash]

No

I can't speak for others but I would really have been, at least happier than right now.