Current state - Realism

[Buckeyeback101]

The slow movement is probably more of a balance thing than a realism thing. Trying to make each "unit type" feel unique and give it its own strengths and weaknesses.

I get the intention, but if I invest all that money into a suit of plate armor (full plate didn't exist yet, but there were other styles) or fully armored troops, I don't want to take a huge movement penalty. If my troops and I have the most expensive gear, we should have a clear advantage.

You do even in warband. your advantage is higher damage and tougher armour. I play multiplayer in a tunic, never anything more. I should be slightly faster and thats all it is is a SLIGHT advantage in speed while your gear gives you a severe advantage. But what I like about M&B is that it doesn't matter how much an advantage someone has, a good player can still have a chance against a geared player.

The movement in heavy armour isn't even slow, its just slower.

I think the way it is in Warband is just fine. For most players, the slight reduction in movement speed is worth the massive increase in durability, so if the have money they'll invest in armor. Some players, however, will run around the server naked for a slight increase in movement speed.

If they increased the movement speed penalty in Bannerlord you would see a lot more players running around naked, which would be ridiculous.

 

[wormydowg]

The slow movement is probably more of a balance thing than a realism thing. Trying to make each "unit type" feel unique and give it its own strengths and weaknesses.

I get the intention, but if I invest all that money into a suit of plate armor (full plate didn't exist yet, but there were other styles) or fully armored troops, I don't want to take a huge movement penalty. If my troops and I have the most expensive gear, we should have a clear advantage.

You do even in warband. your advantage is higher damage and tougher armour. I play multiplayer in a tunic, never anything more. I should be slightly faster and thats all it is is a SLIGHT advantage in speed while your gear gives you a severe advantage. But what I like about M&B is that it doesn't matter how much an advantage someone has, a good player can still have a chance against a geared player.

The movement in heavy armour isn't even slow, its just slower.

I think the way it is in Warband is just fine. For most players, the slight reduction in movement speed is worth the massive increase in durability, so if the have money they'll invest in armor. Some players, however, will run around the server naked for a slight increase in movement speed.

If they increased the movement speed penalty in Bannerlord you would see a lot more players running around naked, which would be ridiculous.

And if they decreased it, then everyone would look like they're off to see the wizard of Oz.

 

[FBohler]

I think the way it is in Warband is just fine. For most players, the slight reduction in movement speed is worth the massive increase in durability, so if the have money they'll invest in armor. Some players, however, will run around the server naked for a slight increase in movement speed.

If they increased the movement speed penalty in Bannerlord you would see a lot more players running around naked, which would be ridiculous.

This is quite an interesting point. If someone ever considered to go to a fight naked, it means that armor isn't well balanced enough.
Slowing down armored troops just for realism's sake is a bad thing.

 

[Apocal]

This is quite an interesting point. If someone ever considered to go to a fight naked, it means that armor isn't well balanced enough.
Slowing down armored troops just for realism's sake is a bad thing.

Treating armor as additional hitpoints or simple damage reduction instead of outright immunity (good luck cutting through steel) has that effect, yeah.

 

[Desuo]

An example:

We are fighting, I have an axe and you are wearing full mail hauberk and gambeson. You miss a block and I slam your chest with a full strength blow from my weapon. The mail prevents the blade from cutting and the gambeson helps take some of the impact, however there is still a lot of force behind the blow and pain radiates from your chest as it feels like a rib may have cracked.

You are not out of the fight immediately but two or three blows like that and you will be down for the count, unable to keep fighting and this is KO or Death in warband.

So, when talking realism and trying to translate that into game terms the armour reduction of lost HP is about as good as you're gonna get in a game and does still represent an actual concept of Early Medieval combat.

I think this is the best representation of an answer to realism in games as can be expected. Hitpoints are a solid foundation for realism in terms of medieval combat in gaming. Gear affecting those stats for or against certain aspects is a great idea. And with a combat system like Warbands, you can even make it so that archery damage can be less effective against heavier armor. Its not a combat system that focuses on the nit picking, but the overall aspects of realism that are implemented.

 

[FBohler]

This is quite an interesting point. If someone ever considered to go to a fight naked, it means that armor isn't well balanced enough.
Slowing down armored troops just for realism's sake is a bad thing.

Treating armor as additional hitpoints or simple damage reduction instead of outright immunity (good luck cutting through steel) has that effect, yeah.

Making armored units almost imune to cutting damage just for realism's sake is a hideous thing.

The game needs to be belieavable, not ultra-realistic.

 

[Apocal]

Making armored units almost imune to cutting damage just for realism's sake is a hideous thing.

The game needs to be belieavable, not ultra-realistic.

For starters, arguing for verisimilitude rather than realism is still an argument against being able to cut through steel, not for it.

Anyway, it isn't for realism's sake. You were just complaining in the post I quoted about how people sometimes run around naked in MP, something that points to armor having marginal or even negative utility. Running around with no armor represents an optima that is common in games where mobility (the ability to dictate range, especially) is under-valued and armor is treated as additional hitpoints. If you can reliably dictate range, you can avoid damage entirely, meaning armor is effectively pointless at a high enough level of skill.

That's considered poor balancing, through and through. It is a known issue, with a known cause, and more than one known solution in terms of balance.

 

[Gibby Jr]

Anyway, it isn't for realism's sake. You were just complaining in the post I quoted about how people sometimes run around naked in MP, something that points to armor having marginal or even negative utility. Running around with no armor represents an optima that is common in games where mobility (the ability to dictate range, especially) is under-valued and armor is treated as additional hitpoints. If you can reliably dictate range, you can avoid damage entirely, meaning armor is effectively pointless at a high enough level of skill.

That's considered poor balancing, through and through. It is a known issue, with a known cause, and more than one known solution in terms of balance.

Most people play naked for fun, to troll or to see how well they can do like that. The game doesn't exactly have a huge competitive scene, but it has one, and nobody there would consider naked as viable; on public servers people are looking to have fun, which for most people doesn't involve working out what works best in terms of meta, but instead what works best in terms of yielding fun and enjoyment. Armour is incredibly useful and saying it's worthless at a high enough level just isn't true; if your opponent is dictating speed then you just block when they do their outranging attack or stay back so that they have to come to you anyway. This is true for battle or duel at a high level. There is certainly a big difference between tincan taking 4 or 5 hits from a greatsword and naked getting 1 hit, so there's not a huge amount that needs to be done in that regard. More armour should almost always be better than less, as is true irl (REALISM!!!) and as is better for balance in terms of upgrading as you gain gold from kills/rounds to buy better equipment. It should have some penalties, such as making you walk more slowly (imo some kind of weight cap would be a way to limit how far you can go - items have weight in warband but all they do is slow you and there's no limit - and perhaps you can go over your weight cap but once you do your speed takes a significantly larger hit, I don't know if this would be viable really but it's preferable to a stamina system and might appease some people desperate for more realism).

Armour has other effects too, it does make cutting weapons more likely to bounce on it (this depends on the angle but good tincan can make bad swords bounce even in straight attacks) and it creates "glance" hits which deal far less damage than normal, as well as giving overall more protection to the person. These are true for 1-handed swords against armour, for 2h the greatsword simply does reduced damage. In terms of balancing this is still fine. Giving players with armour some degree of immunity, which exists already but not to a game-breaking extent, is fine and it could even be expanded to include more weapons and even some 2h weapons so that there are more of these glance hits. Imo this latter kind should be expanded more whilst outright bounces should not be increased; a glance hit is really a recognition that some damage was dealt, not that the attack connected properly, which works in terms of balance and realism. While in real life a strong swing from a greatsword might do little other than knock you to the side a little, for balance sake it must do something, so having a critically reduced damage amount which, crucially to balance, stuns the player is a good idea. By stun I mean when you are hit, there is a period in which you cannot swing back as your character recovers. A glance hit induces this effect whilst dealing no more than 1/10th of the HP bar, this prevents a total ruining of skill which would come from bouncing attacks - ie. allowing a tincan player to keep attacking constantly while other hits simply bounce off of him - but still buffs armour as an increased likelihood of glance hits means the player can be more risky in what they do and can take far more damage.

Don't know where to find an example of this glance hit by memory against armour but it's what happens here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cVMhbrESHQ&feature=youtu.be&t=637
Warband has a real problem with damage being random but TW have already shown how damage will be more regular in Bannerlord so we can at least look forward to that.

 

[Apocal]

Most people play naked for fun, to troll or to see how well they can do like that. The game doesn't exactly have a huge competitive scene, but it has one, and nobody there would consider naked as viable; on public servers people are looking to have fun, which for most people doesn't involve working out what works best in terms of meta, but instead what works best in terms of yielding fun and enjoyment. Armour is incredibly useful and saying it's worthless at a high enough level just isn't true; if your opponent is dictating speed then you just block when they do their outranging attack or stay back so that they have to come to you anyway.

Yeah, OK, I should have phrased that as "high enough difference in skill level." I don't think there was much of an MP community back when I actively played MP (around release, casually, so I might just have missed it if there was), but there were definitely guys who preferred to fight naked with two-handers. They also had sub-80ms pings and could somewhat reliably chamber block while most players barely even blocked at all. I wasn't much bothered by it but some people were (are). Even though those guys who are naked/wearing tunics are basically one mistake away from being someone else's denars.

More armour should almost always be better than less, as is true irl (REALISM!!!) and as is better for balance in terms of upgrading as you gain gold from kills/rounds to buy better equipment.

I don't have a problem with that myself, but some other people do.

Armour has other effects too, it does make cutting weapons more likely to bounce on it (this depends on the angle but good tincan can make bad swords bounce even in straight attacks) and it creates "glance" hits which deal far less damage than normal, as well as giving overall more protection to the person. These are true for 1-handed swords against armour, for 2h the greatsword simply does reduced damage. In terms of balancing this is still fine.

This is what I meant by "additional hitpoints or simple damage reduction." You take more hits but eventually go down. I think everyone who plays Warband -- even SP only -- knows about glancing hits.

 

[FBohler]

For starters, arguing for verisimilitude rather than realism is still an argument against being able to cut through steel, not for it.

Anyway, it isn't for realism's sake. You were just complaining in the post I quoted about how people sometimes run around naked in MP, something that points to armor having marginal or even negative utility. Running around with no armor represents an optima that is common in games where mobility (the ability to dictate range, especially) is under-valued and armor is treated as additional hitpoints. If you can reliably dictate range, you can avoid damage entirely, meaning armor is effectively pointless at a high enough level of skill.

That's considered poor balancing, through and through. It is a known issue, with a known cause, and more than one known solution in terms of balance.

I utterly disagree.

Even full plate armor doesn't weight that much, the mobility difference between totally naked and fully armored is marginal, especially if the combatant in question is properly trained. Adding movement penalties is a video-gamey thing, just to make a point on using lighter armor, to prevent the battlefield from turning into a repetitive full plate armor fest.

That said, trying to hit armor gaps and crevices with your sword is ultra-boring, ultra-realistic gameplay mechanics. Not being able to hurt a foe just because you prefer swords over maces is ultra-realistic, ultra-boring gameplay mechanics.

You may find swords cutting through steel too unrealistic and not a bit believable, but the whole RPG and video game industry just disagree. It's a believable enough gameplay mechanic that is FUN instead of BORING.

If you don't get my message, just look at the poll results.

 

[Dest45]

I always go with the starting clothes in multiplayer and light gloves and boots to match. Encumberance doesn’t actually slow you down til a certain point I think and you are still perfectly mobile. Going light armour is actually worth it in warband, I hope that wont change.

 

[Apocal]

I utterly disagree.

Even full plate armor doesn't weight that much, the mobility difference between totally naked and fully armored is marginal, especially if the combatant in question is properly trained. Adding movement penalties is a video-gamey thing, just to make a point on using lighter armor, to prevent the battlefield from turning into a repetitive full plate armor fest.

That said, trying to hit armor gaps and crevices with your sword is ultra-boring, ultra-realistic gameplay mechanics. Not being able to hurt a foe just because you prefer swords over maces is ultra-realistic, ultra-boring gameplay mechanics.

What part of "I'm OK with people running around naked" was hard to understand? I don't have a problem with the way armor works in Mount and Blade. That was you.

"If someone ever considered to go to a fight naked, it means that armor isn't well balanced enough.
Slowing down armored troops just for realism's sake is a bad thing."

You may find swords cutting through steel too unrealistic and not a bit believable, but the whole RPG and video game industry just disagree. It's a believable enough gameplay mechanic that is FUN instead of BORING.

I don't base my ideas of how reality works on RPG mechanic conventions and you shouldn't either.

Rats don't drop gold.

 

[Honved]

Pointing out "realism", and the arguments for and against, early plate armor in the period represented by M&B had its bad sides.  Yes, it was next to impossible to cut with slashing weapons, and difficult to puncture with piercing weapons, but was easy enough to dent or crease with a heavy object that concentrated the impact on a small area.  It was also nearly as heavy as chain, until later metallurgy improvements (and "fluting") increased its protective value enough to make substantially thinner and lighter.  Late period plate armor was very formidable, but that's well after this game takes place.

Maces, hammers, and the DULL SIDE of most long swords were quite capable of damaging early plate armor, until higher grades of steel became possible and affordable to produce in decent quantity.  Many companies of knights were armed with swords for hacking down the opposing foot troops, but the officers frequently carried picks or hammers to take on opposing armored knights, or duel the opposing officers.

Arrows of the period were diversified into those with barbed cutting heads for killing lightly armored opponents, and those with narrow piercing heads to use against armored opponents.  The latter did less physical damage to the person wearing such armor, but tended to "pin cushion" muscles into place, often leading wounded knights to withdraw from the field of battle.  The creases or sharp edges of a puncture would dig into you as well.  You can't fight very well if you can't raise your arm, twist at the waist, or the like.  You probably won't bleed to death from it (unless you tear the muscle by trying to force it through the arrow), but you're effectively out of the fight until the arrow is extracted.  M&B doesn't have locational damage, but this is what much of the damage to armor did; the armor generally kept you from dying, but you could still be incapacitated.

The weapons that were typically used against plate armor should be reasonably effective against them, and weapons that were typically ineffective should be of very limited value, but not completely useless for gameplay reasons.  Besides, techniques for attacking joints and other weak points existed, and there should be some chance for even weak weapons to occasionally inflict moderate amounts of damage, but not on most hits.

 

[Silen]

 

[John the Roleplayer]

Pointing out "realism", and the arguments for and against, early plate armor in the period represented by M&B had its bad sides.  Yes, it was next to impossible to cut with slashing weapons, and difficult to puncture with piercing weapons, but was easy enough to dent or crease with a heavy object that concentrated the impact on a small area.  It was also nearly as heavy as chain, until later metallurgy improvements (and "fluting") increased its protective value enough to make substantially thinner and lighter.  Late period plate armor was very formidable, but that's well after this game takes place.

Maces, hammers, and the DULL SIDE of most long swords were quite capable of damaging early plate armor, until higher grades of steel became possible and affordable to produce in decent quantity.  Many companies of knights were armed with swords for hacking down the opposing foot troops, but the officers frequently carried picks or hammers to take on opposing armored knights, or duel the opposing officers.

Arrows of the period were diversified into those with barbed cutting heads for killing lightly armored opponents, and those with narrow piercing heads to use against armored opponents.  The latter did less physical damage to the person wearing such armor, but tended to "pin cushion" muscles into place, often leading wounded knights to withdraw from the field of battle.  The creases or sharp edges of a puncture would dig into you as well.  You can't fight very well if you can't raise your arm, twist at the waist, or the like.  You probably won't bleed to death from it (unless you tear the muscle by trying to force it through the arrow), but you're effectively out of the fight until the arrow is extracted.  M&B doesn't have locational damage, but this is what much of the damage to armor did; the armor generally kept you from dying, but you could still be incapacitated.

The weapons that were typically used against plate armor should be reasonably effective against them, and weapons that were typically ineffective should be of very limited value, but not completely useless for gameplay reasons.  Besides, techniques for attacking joints and other weak points existed, and there should be some chance for even weak weapons to occasionally inflict moderate amounts of damage, but not on most hits.

Good post.
Only the point about the dull side of swords isn't correct. Think about it, that would convey the same energy via a larger area than the edge. As you pointed out yourself, the reason maces and hammers work well against plate is the small area of impact, so a sword is usually most effective with the point.

Thrusting swords for that purpose did exist.

隐藏

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoc
https://myarmoury.com/review_mrl_estoc.html

Anyway, the early medieval setting of Bannerlord should exclude the use of plate armour, except for helmets. Consequently, maces and hammers should be used much less than swords and spears.

 

[Honved]

Only the point about the dull side of swords isn't correct. Think about it, that would convey the same energy via a larger area than the edge. As you pointed out yourself, the reason maces and hammers work well against plate is the small area of impact, so a sword is usually most effective with the point.

Thrusting swords for that purpose did exist.

隐藏

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoc
https://myarmoury.com/review_mrl_estoc.html

Anyway, the early medieval setting of Bannerlord should exclude the use of plate armour, except for helmets. Consequently, maces and hammers should be used much less than swords and spears.

The tip of the sword allows you to concentrate energy on a smaller point, but swinging the sword or other weapon gives you far more leverage and impact than a straight thrusting attack, but distributed along a narrow line; it works either way.  One pierces, the other creases; either way, the guy inside the suit is less than happy.  The idea behind using the blunt edge of the blade was to avoid notching the far more delicate sharpened edge and breaking the blade.  Swords not specifically designed for thrusting against armor could bend, so you had to use the right technique for the weapon at hand.  A thin but broad blade was more durable at hacking, and a thick diamond cross section was better for withstanding thrusts.  Improved steel production techniques eventually gave most swords the strength to do either, but that's out of this time frame.

 

[Apocal]

Just when I think I am out, they pull me back in...

The tip of the sword allows you to concentrate energy on a smaller point, but swinging the sword or other weapon gives you far more leverage and impact than a straight thrusting attack, but distributed along a narrow line; it works either way.  One pierces, the other creases; either way, the guy inside the suit is less than happy.

You would need one helluva "crease" to make someone wearing a padded garment underneath their armor feel anything, let alone enough to make them care.

Pointing out "realism", and the arguments for and against, early plate armor in the period represented by M&B had its bad sides.  Yes, it was next to impossible to cut with slashing weapons, and difficult to puncture with piercing weapons, but was easy enough to dent or crease with a heavy object that concentrated the impact on a small area.

I assume this was directed at me, but my remarks said nothing about plate armor. Mail, lamellar and scale were all effectively impervious to cuts while being not just readily available, but downright common in the era roughly depicted by Bannerlord.

 

[jamoecw]

An example:

We are fighting, I have an axe and you are wearing full mail hauberk and gambeson. You miss a block and I slam your chest with a full strength blow from my weapon. The mail prevents the blade from cutting and the gambeson helps take some of the impact, however there is still a lot of force behind the blow and pain radiates from your chest as it feels like a rib may have cracked.

You are not out of the fight immediately but two or three blows like that and you will be down for the count, unable to keep fighting and this is KO or Death in warband.

So, when talking realism and trying to translate that into game terms the armour reduction of lost HP is about as good as you're gonna get in a game and does still represent an actual concept of Early Medieval combat.

I think this is the best representation of an answer to realism in games as can be expected. Hitpoints are a solid foundation for realism in terms of medieval combat in gaming. Gear affecting those stats for or against certain aspects is a great idea. And with a combat system like Warbands, you can even make it so that archery damage can be less effective against heavier armor. Its not a combat system that focuses on the nit picking, but the overall aspects of realism that are implemented.

if you are old enough then you may remember a game called darklands. that game did armor better than any game i know of. you had hit points (strength in the game) and stamina (endurance in game), the armor essentially converted hit point damage to stamina damage, very little of what you did took stamina so it was just the health bar that dictated that falling unconscious or not. weapons had a penetration value that dictated how well they penetrated armor, and armor had a value that dictated how hard they were to penetrate. quality dealt with damage absorption, though this was always a minor effect even on high quality armor.

http://darklands.wikia.com/wiki/Armor

@Apocal - he clearly meant muscle cuirass, after all everything he stated applies to such armor. though the connection to bannerlord is a bit strained. if he had said full plate armor (and thus the medieval period) then you are right in that he would be dead wrong.

 

[Apocal]

@Apocal - he clearly meant muscle cuirass, after all everything he stated applies to such armor. though the connection to bannerlord is a bit strained. if he had said full plate armor (and thus the medieval period) then you are right in that he would be dead wrong.

Yo, I never said anything about plate armor.

And a sword cut wouldn't reliably deform metal armor (except maybe bronze), at least to a practical degree, since the weight of a blade is distributed more or less evenly along its length and the weapon itself is rather light. Picks, arrowheads, spearpoints? Sure. A thrust from a quality sword? Definitely a contender. A cut though? Nah.

But like I said, I'm fine with M&B's (and probably Bannerlord's) solution to the issue of weapons vs. armor being "just level power strike and use whatever."

 

[lolbash]

For starters, arguing for verisimilitude rather than realism is still an argument against being able to cut through steel, not for it.

Anyway, it isn't for realism's sake. You were just complaining in the post I quoted about how people sometimes run around naked in MP, something that points to armor having marginal or even negative utility. Running around with no armor represents an optima that is common in games where mobility (the ability to dictate range, especially) is under-valued and armor is treated as additional hitpoints. If you can reliably dictate range, you can avoid damage entirely, meaning armor is effectively pointless at a high enough level of skill.

That's considered poor balancing, through and through. It is a known issue, with a known cause, and more than one known solution in terms of balance.

I utterly disagree.

Even full plate armor doesn't weight that much, the mobility difference between totally naked and fully armored is marginal, especially if the combatant in question is properly trained. Adding movement penalties is a video-gamey thing, just to make a point on using lighter armor, to prevent the battlefield from turning into a repetitive full plate armor fest.

That said, trying to hit armor gaps and crevices with your sword is ultra-boring, ultra-realistic gameplay mechanics. Not being able to hurt a foe just because you prefer swords over maces is ultra-realistic, ultra-boring gameplay mechanics.

You may find swords cutting through steel too unrealistic and not a bit believable, but the whole RPG and video game industry just disagree. It's a believable enough gameplay mechanic that is FUN instead of BORING.

If you don't get my message, just look at the poll results.

Once again using an obvious push poll to try and justify game mechanics that no one on the forum wants. Good job FHboler.