If they make armour more powerful, the whole game would need to be rebalanced, which is why I don't use any mod to change it, which might thoroughly break the balance, in both singleplayer and multiplayer. In singleplayer mode, Faris is arguably the worst noble troop in game for their poorest armor. Will they become even weaker? Also in online game, Aserai is featured with light armor. I can't imagine they thoroughly rebalance the game.
Yes, that is true. Problem is the game is not balanced as it is now. Simple example are crossbow vs bow.
T5 Bows are doing about 2150 damage with 30 arrows vs 2000 dmg or 20 bolts T5 Crossbow. Now let's not forget bows (fians have 64 arrows and even more dmg) and shoot faster making them simply superior. Reason why crossbow in Warband were great was armor calculation. Example below:
Meaning maximum (more or less) armor of 60 on T5 bannerlord troop reduces damage from archers/xbow by 37.5%. Meaning a 100 dmg crossbow hits for 62 damage and bow for 47.
Meaning crossbow does 32% more damage.
In Warband this would turn into 100 vs let's assume 60 armor aswell. Which gives us 39 armor reduction. So crossbow hits 61 vs 36.
Meaning crossbow would do 70% more damage. That's twice as much as compared to bannerlord.
Simple change of making armor stronger, would make crossbow actually vialbe. Right now there's no point in going for crossbows as they are simply downgrade. No advantage at all. Only advantage is Empire archer has 3 slots of items filled instead of 4, because ????? Yeah, no idea why...
Right now, all melee attacking units are much weaker than ranged units, especially melee attacking units without shields. Look at this, archers can easily murder infantry who outnumber them more than 2x.
Yes, send archers who counter shield breakers against shield breakers and be suprised they do well. Come on man. Archers are a counter to shield breakers/shock troops. They are meant to do that and I am happy with above results.That's archers jobs, destroy shieldless infantry.
allowing your archers at the back to shoot into melee.
It's more of an AI issue where infantry/cavalry ignores archers. In my playthrough infantry wasn't always enough to stop enemy infantry with my archers in the back due to enemy cav/infantry killing my infantry. Unless you cheese it.
Right now noble troop tiers are something like this:
This is actually depressing to look at. It's problem with how Khan's guard is designed (never used them, yet). I don't think armor changes will fix it. However it just shows how much damage/armor calculations is scuffed, because by simply giving 1 unit a 2 handed polearm on horse, we made it strongest cavalry. If we took recruits and put them on horses and gave them polearm with swing attack? I am afraid they might achieve similar results of beating toppest tier units. Because armor matters that little, with how much damage units do. In Warband this was less of issue 1. armor 2. skills. Power strike increased our damage by 8-80% + weapon proficiency. If we remove it off the table, we remove 1 balancing tool of units and we end up with the video five bucks linked. Damage > all.
What you said is exactly what concerns me. I think if armor is made stronger, the maintenance of higher tier troops should be greatly increased. In valina game, low tier troops have their place. I kind of enjoy choosing between power but expensive high tier troops, and weak but cheap low tier troops. If maintenance not change, many interesting low-tier troops would become meaningless, not good for variety.
In vanilla, I just recruit any melee troops I can, because they will die anyway in army x army. I tried to make some kind of composition, but they just die too easily. They get smashed by sheer quantity > quality. I stopped caring sadly and lost that aspect of fun of the RPG.
Ranged troops might be a little op in singleplayer mode, but I doubt if it's armour's sake, as in multiplayer mode ranged troops are kind of weak. If armor is powered against arrows, I can't see any use of ranged troops in multiplayer mode. I also concern some other things like the maintenance and the strength in simulation battles. From simulation battle, we can figure out that 1 high tier troop is equivalent to 2 or 3 low tier troops. If armor is buffed, then high tier troops are buffed, which means high tier troops may slaughter more recruits. I don't know if you see it ok, but they need to be reworked, or maybe only buff armour against arrows? Then why not just keep nerf archers.
Ranged troops are OP for few reasons. 1. they do lot of damage 2. cavalry AI. 3. weak cavalry. If we buff armor we fix 2 out of 3 aspects, balancing the archers (and bringing crossbows back into being useful).
Simulation battles are based of weird calculations. If we followed their results we would come up to conclusion that 20 loots will always throw a rock at our Battanian Fian and kill it
. I think buffing armor won't hurt low tier troops, but actually make them more important. Right now low tier troops are cannon fodder, because they are squishy. If we buff armor we also buff all T1-T4 units aswell. Making them stronger against enemies. Each upgrade of tier would feel more significant, because our units would either get shield or good armor and make them harder to kill against some looters/archers. You would literally see difference between T1 and T3 unit, which is hard to tell sometimes in Bannerlord.
High tier troop have so many other benefits that I don't think they should be any cheaper. Rich players can use them as a way to increase their strength, even if seems not worthy enough. They take less food and capacity, they are less likely to die. A party of 100 tier5 troops can be a lord hunter in campaign map, while 600 recruits can do nothing except being garrison(very slow movement, or you can't bring them all out) So many benifits that it's enough to make people to prefer to use them. I think it's ok to make it expensive, so that the player would try to explore some low tier troops instead of only use the most elite ones no matter how rich or poor he is.
You are right. We can balance it out by increasing wages for higher tier units, same for cavalry. No one will mind it. Gold right now is not an issue and yes 100T5 units vs 600 recruits sounds better. However if you get caught with 100T5 recruits vs 200 enemy random troops they just recruited. Will you be sure to come out victorious from that fight? In Warband I would be 100% sure, in bannerlord... not really. Problem with lower troop tier is they shouldn't ever be your goal. You should always want to upgrade them and have higher tier troops. You pay gold for them and wages, so they can pay you back with their efficiency. I think it would be better to just add more variety to troops, rather than making T2-T4 units more appealing.
Warband is not a well-balanced game, If some troop can take on 10 recuits(20 denars) alone in melee, I think it should take 40 denars. Expensive though, player would still be likely to use them for their competence as long as they can afford it, but not fill them all in castle as garrison, instead, some cheap and useful middle tier troops come into play. If it only takes 20 or 25 denars, player would surely only use the most elite troops if possible.
I agree, but as it was said we would be happy to see them kill atleast 5 of them. Right now it's hard to tell if they would kill 2 or 3. I would rather have a well rounded unit with thrown weapon, good shield and good melee weapon or spear to brace. So I can use them in creative ways than just a guy with stick and shield that stands still and dies after 1/2 kills.
But the armor and damage calculation are the same I guess? So it might be solved in a similar way?
Yes and no. Multiplayer has a different module. It can be divided in SP and MP (or already is). It's not a big deal.
I doubt if it's that serious, ranged troops may struggle in some terrain where infantry would never. Infantry can take advantage of terrain easily to hide from enemy archers safely, when defend of course. I had some playthrough not using archers, not bad, though not as powerful as fian
Well, enemy AI can't think and hide behind obstacles. Also you can always reposition archers. Worse terrain = slower cav/infantry = > stronger ranged units
. Problem is you speaking of a player perspective and we as players want some kind of challenge from enemy AI. I want to be afraid of that 1 party with 40 elite cataphracts, while I have 120 T1 units.
Love the cavalry most of all though, they feel strong in a good way and not in the stupid way of vanilla.
I hate cavalry in that game. Main issue is charge/knock down effect and spear bracing doesn't really work (tried it and got terrible results of 3-5 damage).
I mean, most M&B games are all about getting the best possible troops to fill up your slots in the end, lower tier troops don't factor into **** more often than not. Only game I can think of where they did was Viking Conquest, and that's because it takes forever to train troops.
True, but the thing we players want is to feel some kind of accomplishment and reward for geting a perfect 300 army man composition and not see those units get obliterated, by random 600 army of enemy with recruits and T1-T5 mixup, just because they have archers/cavalry.