Damage in this game is Ridiculous

[Ted Striker]

That's no longer about damage. That's AI.

Point is that looters are all kinds of messed up. Rocks apparently big enough to cause decent damage, thrown with some heft by scrawny starving peasants with an iron will that will not break formation and flee if facing an oncoming horse charge, and with laser-guided aim.

Makes MLB pitchers proud.

 

[Philozoraptor]

Now, granted I normally mod the crap out of Warband and toy with the damage values on a regular basis, but I don't remember native warband being this ridiculous in terms of damage. Most melee weapons are sitting around at f*cking 60 cutting damage with swords, axes, etc, and maces can deal a whopping 50 damage. In Warband you are lucky to get your hands on a weapon that good that's two handed, and armor at least does something in native warband. In bannerlord however? It's expensive garbage that merely drags out your slim healthbar by an meager sliver. Why the hell are so many weapons not only so damaging, but able to deal damage what is supposed to be the toughest armor in the game? I even tried using the dummy max value heavy armor and it still wouldn't protect me from looters throwing rocks, or basic melee strikes from some of the weakest melee units in the game. Why the hell is fodder able to counter elite units like Catpahracts, when the entire purpose of such units is that they are essentially invulnerable to fodder with no armor and wielding one handed weapons with no shields? Arrows likewise are absolutely ridiculous, as are missile weapons in general, to the point that there really is no point to ever get in melee. You will get swarmed by the cheapest and most garbage infantry swiftly and cut down regardless of how "good" your equipment is, and you're basically screwed as soon as you run out of ammo for your missile weapon of choice. Considering this is supposed to coexist with permadeath, the current lethality in bannerlord is ridiculous. And not just for a basic character level, but for gameplay as well. Being able to hack apart even the toughest units or characters with just a couple hits isn't fun, it's goddamn boring. There's no such thing as a lengthy good fight with the bots even on hard, as one of you will go down in just a couple hits despite wearing armor that should render you impregnable to most basic weapons.

Please, for the love of god, either nerf the damage of every weapon in SP into the ground to make fights drag out for an actual length of time instead of these ridiculous anime-esque battles with people wielding lightsabers disguised as arming swords, or at least give us the modding tools (or just module armor soak and armor reduction values to damage) to do it ourselves ASAP. I'm pretty much losing all interest in bannerlord for the time being until something is done, as the combat is just dull compared to Warband.

Armor is mostly cosmetic in BL. Just mod the game (not shilling or anything).

 

[Philozoraptor]

ofcourse this has something to do with game balance. do you think it would be fun if you were the archer and an invincible cataphract massacres you and your troops? ?

Maybe get melee infantry that will soak up the charge with polearms and shields? Use terrain to your advantage (hill, forrest where cav cant properly move, hill with forest etc). Maybe get your own cav to bind enemy cav while you shoot them / win the battle in the center. I mean there could be actual tactics in the game instead of charge / hold position with archers.

 

[Philozoraptor]

Chain mail is also good against slashing, not piercing. Can go in between the links and break them apart. Most armor was better against cutting than piercing. Which is something they could lean into as well.

Partially correct, properly made mail (most of medern reproduction are messed up in some way despite being made of modern mild steel instead of mediaval wrought iron or low carbon steel) can have one of its links broken on impact with powerfull thruist of polearm or arrow. However anything but arrow (and maybe some swords) needs to break more than one link (due to how thick spear heads and sword blades are in comparison to arrow heads) in order to fully penetrate and cause guaranteed instakill. You can still kill somebody with partial penetration, however, it would depend on where you hit, it might take some time etc.

 

[Philozoraptor]

Funny thing though, if you look in the xml files a noble bow has a thrust_speed of 135 and a speed_rating of 91. The throwing stone has 102 in both.

Also the stone has no "thrust_damage_type" , that means it will not be considered in their mathematics of weapon dmg. If im right.

Stone thrust_damage is 15 so I think it will always be, never the less what armor you wear

Speed rating in my experience is only stat that player can see. When I messed with it there was absolutely no difference between 200 and 10 for example.

 

[Hans 77]

Fix blunt damage.
Fix missile damage.
Fix armor.
Fix Bannerlord.

 

[Haihefa Pauna]

Now, granted I normally mod the crap out of Warband and toy with the damage values on a regular basis, but I don't remember native warband being this ridiculous in terms of damage. Most melee weapons are sitting around at f*cking 60 cutting damage with swords, axes, etc, and maces can deal a whopping 50 damage. In Warband you are lucky to get your hands on a weapon that good that's two handed, and armor at least does something in native warband. In bannerlord however? It's expensive garbage that merely drags out your slim healthbar by an meager sliver. Why the hell are so many weapons not only so damaging, but able to deal damage what is supposed to be the toughest armor in the game? I even tried using the dummy max value heavy armor and it still wouldn't protect me from looters throwing rocks, or basic melee strikes from some of the weakest melee units in the game. Why the hell is fodder able to counter elite units like Catpahracts, when the entire purpose of such units is that they are essentially invulnerable to fodder with no armor and wielding one handed weapons with no shields? Arrows likewise are absolutely ridiculous, as are missile weapons in general, to the point that there really is no point to ever get in melee. You will get swarmed by the cheapest and most garbage infantry swiftly and cut down regardless of how "good" your equipment is, and you're basically screwed as soon as you run out of ammo for your missile weapon of choice. Considering this is supposed to coexist with permadeath, the current lethality in bannerlord is ridiculous. And not just for a basic character level, but for gameplay as well. Being able to hack apart even the toughest units or characters with just a couple hits isn't fun, it's goddamn boring. There's no such thing as a lengthy good fight with the bots even on hard, as one of you will go down in just a couple hits despite wearing armor that should render you impregnable to most basic weapons.

Please, for the love of god, either nerf the damage of every weapon in SP into the ground to make fights drag out for an actual length of time instead of these ridiculous anime-esque battles with people wielding lightsabers disguised as arming swords, or at least give us the modding tools (or just module armor soak and armor reduction values to damage) to do it ourselves ASAP. I'm pretty much losing all interest in bannerlord for the time being until something is done, as the combat is just dull compared to Warband.

even the ''difficulty'' is misleading. the ''realism difficulty'' only seems to affect the player. my current character got 175 archery ( with the headshot bonus and 8% damage bonus ) wielding a noble bow and piercing arrows. i sometimes need to headshot militia archers twice for a kill. but when i get hit in the leg i lose half my hp ''reeeeeeeeeeee''

 

[kweassa]

Maybe get melee infantry that will soak up the charge with polearms and shields? Use terrain to your advantage (hill, forrest where cav cant properly move, hill with forest etc). Maybe get your own cav to bind enemy cav while you shoot them / win the battle in the center. I mean there could be actual tactics in the game instead of charge / hold position with archers.

That's not the point.

The point is with the way how the game makes it easy to recruit the troops you desire, and provide upgrades to higher tier soldiers with just a mere paltry sum of gold paid in a one-off-deal, and then bam! the entire troop just transforms and comes with higher grade armor, just like that. The end result is a player can very easily amass an army with "unrealistically" high ratio of top-tier soldiers, without having any of the real-life drawbacks in terms of logistics and upkeep attached to it.

If people want to drag in how real life armor works against melee weapons and arrows, they should also drag in the real-life circumstances of how a typical field army would not be so equipped uniformly with high-grade gear. In this game just a little bit of time investment and you can have 100% of your troops fully armed to the teeth, in which the end result of "realistic armor" is nothing but the entire class of ranged troops being turned obsolete, as well as all battles played out will also begin to spend "realistic amounts" of time. In this game that features non-stop battles, do the players really want every fight to take like an hour or so?

So, if people want "realistic armor" in the game, then like it or not it's gonna come with significant changes to how the troops are recruited and upkept. Like, how would you like it, if you have to pay as much as you equip yourself, for each and every soldier you field? Of course, you aren't going to be able to pay that money so easily until endgame, so that means only a relatively smaller fraction of your forces will be able to have good quality armor that can stop blows and arrows, and the majority will have to be equipped with varying degrees of inferior equipment.

Do the players really want that? Me, personally, I wouldn't mind. I'd find it even more immersive since it adds significant more realism to the game. But I don't think other people's gonna like it when they see they have to pay something 10k gold per each leather/gambeson armored troop getting their hands on mail or higher-grade armor.

 

[MostBlunted]

So, if people want "realistic armor" in the game, then like it or not it's gonna come with significant changes to how the troops are recruited and upkept.

Ah come on, this game isn´t and doesn´t need to be realistic. So working armor doesn´t need to change other parts of the game.

 

[kweassa]

Ah come on, this game isn´t and doesn´t need to be realistic. So working armor doesn´t need to change other parts of the game.

I agree games don't necessarily have to be realistic, which is why armor doesn't necessarily have to roflstomp incoming arrows and blows like it should for sake of a better, faster-paced game.

But if you bring in "realistic armor protection" it can, and it WILL inadvertently affect things that directly impact that gameplay. Ranged units becoming unilaterally useless, as mentioned, is only one just instance.

For example. one of the most useful early-game progression methods of "tournament rounding" is seriously going to suffer, as you'll basically have no chance to defeat anyone with your starting level gear, if armor protects so well against blows.

Much the same, your starting level army will be "realistically" and hopelessly be outmatched against any non-bandit army in the game that's better equipped than yours -- often even with numbers advantage -- and you'll be limited to fighting non-armored bandits for a way longer a time, which will slow down your character progression accordingly.

It's literally a "be careful what you wish for" situation just waiting to happen.

 

[MostBlunted]

But if you bring in "realistic armor protection" it can, and it WILL inadvertently affect things that directly impact that gameplay. Ranged units becoming unilaterally useless, as mentioned, is only one just instance.

The realistic battle mod prooves you wrong.

 

[Philozoraptor]

That's not the point.

The point is with the way how the game makes it easy to recruit the troops you desire, and provide upgrades to higher tier soldiers with just a mere paltry sum of gold paid in a one-off-deal, and then bam! the entire troop just transforms and comes with higher grade armor, just like that. The end result is a player can very easily amass an army with "unrealistically" high ratio of top-tier soldiers, without having any of the real-life drawbacks in terms of logistics and upkeep attached to it.

If people want to drag in how real life armor works against melee weapons and arrows, they should also drag in the real-life circumstances of how a typical field army would not be so equipped uniformly with high-grade gear. In this game just a little bit of time investment and you can have 100% of your troops fully armed to the teeth, in which the end result of "realistic armor" is nothing but the entire class of ranged troops being turned obsolete, as well as all battles played out will also begin to spend "realistic amounts" of time. In this game that features non-stop battles, do the players really want every fight to take like an hour or so?

So, if people want "realistic armor" in the game, then like it or not it's gonna come with significant changes to how the troops are recruited and upkept. Like, how would you like it, if you have to pay as much as you equip yourself, for each and every soldier you field? Of course, you aren't going to be able to pay that money so easily until endgame, so that means only a relatively smaller fraction of your forces will be able to have good quality armor that can stop blows and arrows, and the majority will have to be equipped with varying degrees of inferior equipment.

Do the players really want that? Me, personally, I wouldn't mind. I'd find it even more immersive since it adds significant more realism to the game. But I don't think other people's gonna like it when they see they have to pay something 10k gold per each leather/gambeson armored troop getting their hands on mail or higher-grade armor.

Why dont you play with True Army Costs and De Re Militari in addition to RBM? These two mods deal with your issue and are 100% compatible with RBM. Sometimes I really feel like people are too lazy to search for 5 minutes and instead write paragraphs because they want stuff handed to them on gold platter.

We are trying to make the mod as compatible with vanilla as possible. If we went with more realistic recruitment you would have to start a new game or at least play for a long time to cicle out old units, which is the case with DRM. Also you need to take into account AI too, you think they are gonna suddenly excel at countering player doomstacks better if they wont be able to upgrade 90% of their army into tier 5?

Mount and Blade recruitment was always super gamey but most of people are used to it and it brings the proper kind of satisfaction when you can see your progress. More realistic approach to recruitment will alienate 90% of the player base unfortunatelly.

 

[Philozoraptor]

I agree games don't necessarily have to be realistic, which is why armor doesn't necessarily have to roflstomp incoming arrows and blows like it should for sake of a better, faster-paced game.

But if you bring in "realistic armor protection" it can, and it WILL inadvertently affect things that directly impact that gameplay. Ranged units becoming unilaterally useless, as mentioned, is only one just instance.

For example. one of the most useful early-game progression methods of "tournament rounding" is seriously going to suffer, as you'll basically have no chance to defeat anyone with your starting level gear, if armor protects so well against blows.

Much the same, your starting level army will be "realistically" and hopelessly be outmatched against any non-bandit army in the game that's better equipped than yours -- often even with numbers advantage -- and you'll be limited to fighting non-armored bandits for a way longer a time, which will slow down your character progression accordingly.

It's literally a "be careful what you wish for" situation just waiting to happen.

You are literally delusional or super hyperbolic. Ranged units are not useless, they just no longer roflstomp everything they look upon (this is at reload realism set to 1! they still roflstomp at setting of 0 or 2, and 2 is default). Can you show me some custom battle / enhanced battle scenario that supports your claims about ranged being useless so I can replicate it and check it out? Lack of kills does not mean useless BTW, they still deal damage and have assists which are simply not shown in the scoreboard.

Perhaps you should not be able to win tournament against seasoned soldiers and lord with T-shirt and 30 melee skill in the beginning of the game? Do you want to get everything for free? Just play at lowest difficulty or something. On the one hand you seem to want challange on the other hand you want to win tournaments in the beginning of the RPG / RTS mixed game when you literally have low character level?

I can literally go to mercenary with decent army under hour of playing. Are trying to beat all countries as independent since day 1?

I literally cannot replicate any of your issue when I use basic tactics

 

[MostBlunted]

@Philozoraptor

You and your guys are doing an amazing job for us! Keep up the good work! It´s really much appreciated.

After trying your mod a few months ago I´m not able to play Bannerlord without it.

 

[kweassa]

The realistic battle mod prooves you wrong.

Oh gee. You think so?

Looks more like "higher-tier/thicker armor = auto-win" to me.

No offense to the creator of RBM, but I wouldn't rate RBM anywhere near "realistic." It simply plays to people's expectations which are biased toward convenience in the first place. (which isn't a bad thing, since that's what mods are)

 

[kweassa]

You are literally delusional or super hyperbolic. Ranged units are not useless, they just no longer roflstomp everything they look upon (this is at reload realism set to 1! they still roflstomp at setting of 0 or 2, and 2 is default). Can you show me some custom battle / enhanced battle scenario that supports your claims about ranged being useless so I can replicate it and check it out? Lack of kills does not mean useless BTW, they still deal damage and have assists which are simply not shown in the scoreboard.

Perhaps you should not be able to win tournament against seasoned soldiers and lord with T-shirt and 30 melee skill in the beginning of the game? Do you want to get everything for free? Just play at lowest difficulty or something. On the one hand you seem to want challange on the other hand you want to win tournaments in the beginning of the RPG / RTS mixed game when you literally have low character level?

I can literally go to mercenary with decent army under hour of playing. Are trying to beat all countries as independent since day 1?

I literally cannot replicate any of your issue when I use basic tactics

And how much money do you pay for recruit level people getting upto tier-6?

The point is gameplay. Nothing about the game can be compared at a 1:1 level to what shi* was like in real-life, because everyone has a different standard of what level of real-life inconveniences to tolerate at the detriment of what to be considered 'fun.'

The players clamoring for "better armor protection" are using "reality" as an excuse, but it's simply selective toward their own convenience. Not to mention default gameplay with vanilla already provides plenty semi-realistic results.

At the least friggin' way more realistic than the screenshots above where "high armor" = "invincible."

 

[Hans 77]

And there you have it folks, a screenshot of a heavy cavalry doomstack bullying a haphazard army of dubious quality on unknown difficulty settings thus proves there is nothing wrong with armor or damage calc.

Case closed.

 

[Philozoraptor]

Oh gee. You think so?

Looks more like "higher-tier/thicker armor = auto-win" to me.

No offense to the creator of RBM, but I wouldn't rate RBM anywhere near "realistic." It simply plays to people's expectations which are biased toward convenience in the first place. (which isn't a bad thing, since that's what mods are)

So the tier 6 units generally win over much worse armies? You mean like in medieval times when knights were expected to steamroll everything and it was big unexpected event when infantry alone or archers defeated them? I dont see problem with it, thats how it was, number of lost levies were often not even mentioned in the historical sources because of how irrelevant they were most of the time. It was all about the knights, mercenaries and other professional troops. Less geared and trained troops were there to soak up charges, arrows and hold the line while the expensive guys took broke enemy morale. One thing that is super unrealistic in BL (this includes RBM because gameplay) is morale, those armies you faces should have probably been broken by just looking at 250 super heavy knights, but that would not have been funny gameplay would it?

I personally take all recruits I have (so I dont end up with noble only army in a first place) and fight 1500 vs 1500 battles (or bigger) so even if I have 200 good men I am not guaranteed to win because enemy brings at least 300 good men from their spawn armies (more so with lord retinue uptier, its kind of AI cheat but it makes game more difficult). After few big battles your 200 super duper troops will be reduced to 50 good and 150 ****ty troops (assuming other lords in your army will not steal all "your" recruits, which they will, so you will be probalby reduced to 50 original troops and 25 troops you got from prisoners). Same would happen if you had full stack of best Fians.

And I actually agree with wage and general economy rebalance in the game. However its outside of scope of the RBM at the moment. Because if I were to do it I would do it from ground up and change everything not just waged. We are talking here MEIOU and Taxes level of rework if you are familiar with EU3 and EU4 games. Actual levy and noble and mercenary manpower, derived from population. Population prosperity would dictate ratio of these menpowers and quality of gear etc. You would actually need the gear for the troops, gear would have to be produced from actual resources. You would need proper infrastracture to get proper quality of gear (wrought iron vs low carbon steel vs thamaskene steel). And so on. Sound great on paper right? But I dont feel like doing that on my own and I am not going to half ass it by doing player only features or increasing wages overall to the point that dumb AI gets broken so it will either make game much easier as a result or AI would have to cheat much more and the player would have even less impact and grind will be even greater.

 

[Philozoraptor]

And how much money do you pay for recruit level people getting upto tier-6?

The point is gameplay. Nothing about the game can be compared at a 1:1 level to what shi* was like in real-life, because everyone has a different standard of what level of real-life inconveniences to tolerate at the detriment of what to be considered 'fun.'

The players clamoring for "better armor protection" are using "reality" as an excuse, but it's simply selective toward their own convenience. Not to mention default gameplay with vanilla already provides plenty semi-realistic results.

At the least friggin' way more realistic than the screenshots above where "high armor" = "invincible."

What do you mean by different standards? There is only one standard if you want realism and you have good enough data, which is as accurate as possible, everything else is gamey. If it is well documented how much energy is needed to penetrate mail or gambeson or sheet of mild steel of specific thickness with bodkin arrow. And we know the physics behind it all, and scaling of these effects with thickness of material and we know how thick these armors were and what material they were made of historically what is there to discuss about penetration? We can discuss blunt trauma because that is hard to evaluate, we can discuss how the weakspots in the armor will be abstracted given how bad the hiboxes are and how basic the combat is in BL. But if I have some decent data to go by why should I randomly decide to ignore it? More so if it actuall works in the game (hence why morale is not realistically implemented, it just does not add anything to the experience). But I believe that proper implementation of relativistic physics like using enemy speed against them to penetrate their armor adds to the game.

 

[kweassa]

What do you mean by different standards? There is only one standard if you want realism and you have good enough data, which is as accurate as possible, everything else is gamey. If it is well documented how much energy is needed to penetrate mail or gambeson or sheet of mild steel of specific thickness with bodkin arrow. And we know the physics behind it all, and scaling of these effects with thickness of material and we know how thick these armors were and what material they were made of historically what is there to discuss about penetration? We can discuss blunt trauma because that is hard to evaluate, we can discuss how the weakspots in the armor will be abstracted given how bad the hiboxes are and how basic the combat is in BL. But if I have some decent data to go by why should I randomly decide to ignore it? More so if it actuall works in the game (hence why morale is not realistically implemented, it just does not add anything to the experience). But I believe that proper implementation of relativistic physics like using enemy speed against them to penetrate their armor adds to the game.

Repeating again, more slowly this time, "realism" in a game is selective. Games are not real life, nor can it ever hope to be no matter how well-simulated it is.

Obviously you think maximal realism is just the best for everything, but then why stop at armor and weapons?

-- Let's implement battle pacing to the real life standards of at least 2 hours real-time, to at maximum a whole 24 hours.

-- How about recruiting and training? Does manpower just pop up at regular intervals in real life? Why not implement realistic population limits and have a country which loses major battles suffer its effects to the military and the economy for generations?

-- Do people instantly go from a novice, to a top-tier elite soldier just because they win a few battles within a week? Have all the soldiers stay low tier, and requiring years worth of experience to reach at least tier 4. Sounds good right?

-- When the reality of the in-game economic situation is that lords with multiple fiefs can maintain at maximum 150~200 soldiers, how the heck is it possible for a mere landless mercenary to maintain bands of soldiers 200+? Economically and logistically totally unrealistic. The player shouldn't be able to field as much soldiers as lords.

-- How can it be possible for the player army to traverse long distances without sleeping? The players should be forced to stop and make camp at least every 2 in-game days, right?

-- As mentioned in previous posts, all the equipment of your soldiers should cost significantly more. The player's =oneself requires at least like 10k to have a decent mid-tier level gear. But the soldiers you just pay at max a few hundred gold and they instantly transform into higher tier gear. Is this realistic? Way too easy for the player to field high-tier armies with superior gear. Each soldier should be paid at least 10k every time it levels up to the next tier.

-- Hygiene is a thing. Regular outbreaks needed in armies that are fielded for too long a time. Have random diseases and ailments strike your army so it constantly reduces your battle-ready soldiers.

-- Player characters being unlikely to die even with death settings on. Way too convenient for the player. If the player receives a big wound, or gets knock out in the field, should be a very high chance they would just die and the game be over at that moment.


Sounds good, right? Under your standards, all of the above should be in the game. Let's see how many people would play that.

You'd probably say "not every realism adds to the game" -- which, is indeed, correct. But the fact you choose certain areas of realism whereas leave others to gamey convenience, is itself "game balancing." But if certain areas can be simplified, omitted, or portrayed fantastically for the sake of a game, why shouldn't armor and damage be the same? Especially when the vanilla game already is pretty much realistic in its results?