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<p>In a real-life battle, clever commanders will look for as many advantages as possible: they will try to get the high ground, outnumber their enemies, flank and surround them, strike by surprise… If they could do so, they would only engage battle when odds are overwhelmingly in their favour, so the battle ends even before it begins. Video games, on the other hand, are supposed to be fun – and for that, they need to be fair, especially in multiplayer. If you see yourself in a disadvantaged position, you should be there because of taking the wrong decisions, not because the game failed to find a balance where it’s the one with the best skills who win. In a game with deep gameplay, such as Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, with so many different factions, troop types, weaponry, terrain, etc., finding that delicate balance is particularly tricky.</p></br> [/parsehtml]Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/97
Dev Blog 14/02/18
- Thread starter Callum
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Yeah not to diminish the epicness of the gif, but it is odd how so few of the troops used their spear when they saw this scenario coming and the cavalry had a lot of "going for the same guy" syndrome with that big ole pileup.
Have to give it up for the cool formation though. Plus people hit by horses no longer fly 50 feet in the air so that's nice.
Have to give it up for the cool formation though. Plus people hit by horses no longer fly 50 feet in the air so that's nice.
CKyHC
and the armor only in multiplayer will not beat on the speed? I did not quite understand 
Fietta said:
Τhe weight is based on equipment, but equipment is tied to classes. Essentially the same thing but there are perks that give different weapons to classes. So expect slight differences. For one, Battanian ulfthednar class holds a huge 2H axe, but a perk gives them the ability to get a maul from the gameplay videos we have seen.
kalarhan said:
Gab-AG. said:
+1 wise people
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We have become hooligans (me first) and I will tell you why with a football simile. What happens when your beloved team gets five goals to zero in a match? ohh mercenaries, you are the worst, start to run ...etc.. On the other hand, when they win, oh what a wonderful team, what a ball handler, what a team game...
Today Taleworlds has offered us spectacle with this match...it has not been a victory by many but a good 3-0.
We want goals, that's the way to win the matches and keep the fans happy. Score goals in every game, Taleworlds.
The information in this blog has been relevant, you have created hype. The gif speaks for itself, I love it. Now you should show the opposite, a cavalry charge against a pikes formation to see if they really works.
Nitpicking: It seems that the charge "tends" to converge in a central point...I don't know if that's what you want to achieve. Personally I think that the charge "should" force a horizontality since it seems that the cavalry unit is charging in line formation.
Rhaeyl
578 said:
Not essentially the same thing at all and nothing to do with perks. The specific class has one speed no matter the equipment, otherwise the agile berserker with a heavy axe is needless to mention
I agree with Fietta, can't know how this will affect the game overall until we get to play it, but on paper it does seem kinda simplified and removes that gearing up vibe. No matter what you have the same speed so instead of a merc or a soldier, it would feel more like playing a "class". On paper. We'll see
Rhaeyl said:578 said:
Not essentially the same thing at all and nothing to do with perks. The specific class has one speed no matter the equipment, otherwise the agile berserker with a heavy axe is needless to mention
I agree with Fietta, can't know how this will affect the game overall until we get to play it, but on paper it does seem kinda simplified and removes that gearing up vibe. No matter what you have the same speed so instead of a merc or a soldier, it would feel more like playing a "class". On paper. We'll see
The wording seems to be that way but how can a maul be the same in speed as a 2H axe? Because in the videos it clearly showed that perks allow you to choose a different weapon. Hmmmm. I don't know, it has the basis of being something very balanced as they put it, I mean i generally disliked agile spammers who move faster, swing faster, outrange with full turn swings while moving away but I really did not want for the gold/equipment system to go away, at all. Regardless, it is what it is though. We'll have to wait as you say.
Wilhelmus Van Laecken
Regular
578 said:
You can see them throwing javelins when the charge breaks their formation.
Rhaeyl
578 said:Rhaeyl said:578 said:
Not essentially the same thing at all and nothing to do with perks. The specific class has one speed no matter the equipment, otherwise the agile berserker with a heavy axe is needless to mention
I agree with Fietta, can't know how this will affect the game overall until we get to play it, but on paper it does seem kinda simplified and removes that gearing up vibe. No matter what you have the same speed so instead of a merc or a soldier, it would feel more like playing a "class". On paper. We'll see
The wording seems to be that way but how can a maul be the same in speed as a 2H axe? Because in the videos it clearly showed that perks allow you to choose a different weapon. Hmmmm. I don't know, it has the basis of being something very balanced as they put it, I mean i generally disliked agile spammers who move faster, swing faster, outrange with full turn swings while moving away but I really did not want for the gold/equipment system to go away, at all. Regardless, it is what it is though. We'll have to wait as you say.
I think I misread your earlier post, sorry about that mate. I see what you mean now, so it's just the movement speed that is tied I guess? Makes most sense.
Indeed man I hope that it turns out well also, I'd really miss that gold gear system too.
Rhaeyl
Anyone else get a more Total War kind of feel from the bigger battles we have seen so far?
Especially this gif.
Specifically in terms of the weight of two formations clashing and how "formation-y" cohesive they look.
Must be the 3 level combat AI huh?
Not a bad feel at all imo.
Especially this gif.
Specifically in terms of the weight of two formations clashing and how "formation-y" cohesive they look.
Must be the 3 level combat AI huh?
Not a bad feel at all imo.
I really enjoy that gif but I agree with everyone that the behavior of the spearmen still suffers from the same behavioral problems of Warband. Also, there seems to be a complete lack of casualties on both sides of the charge. Charging a well-formed three ranks deep spear wall that is braced should have consequences. The charge physics are beautiful to look at but they result in a lot of knocking over opponents without any real casualties. I just hope pike formations in Bannerlord will kill something like this in its tracks.
It could be, or maybe not. Previous gameplay videos showcased, at least in the captain gameplay videos, that 1 perk is utility and 1 perk has to do with gear. The whole system revamp is a double edged knife and it highly depends on execution and how it is implemented. For example, in warband I could be a Nord shielder but I could many variations of it. I could be light, medium or heavy. The case seems to be that it will be much closer to the preset units of Single player system. i.e Empire will have heavy infantry classes as specialization. We lack details so far. I am not particularily worried since people will mod it and I am sure they will put the equipment/gold system back but it would be cool to see exactly how it plays on native, because let's be honest, that's where the majority will be.
Good blog! How about a function?
Can I turn off colored clothes and armor (pink, blue, birch and durgy)?
Can I turn off colored clothes and armor (pink, blue, birch and durgy)?
I'll say first that what I read about multiplayer balance sounded pretty good, and that the physics of the GIF look fantastic, and that the infantry formation held well (you see the ones who had been knocked over and pushed back immediately walk back to the line)- and now I'll get onto the contentious stuff. I have different ideas to a lot of posters here about what is right and what is wrong in this GIF.
If you focus on the end of the GIF, you can see that they are not all converging to a central point. There are plenty of knights far further down the line who are maintaining their position in the formation (in line with the red lines you drew), not converging towards the near-camera group. It is merely that the "camera" is close to where one of the most successful breakthroughs happened, and a clump of knights have made it rapidly through the enemy infantry, giving the impression of a wedge at this point. The converging impression may be also due to the knights closest to our end of the line (the left, where the camera is) coming from a wider position; it seems the cavalry line was a bit wider than the infantry one.
I was wowed by the GIF at first, it looks great, but there are a few problems to examine. As cool as the GIF looks, like other people I am frustrated to see that very few infantrymen appear to be using their spears. I thinks some are using their spears, and though it is hard to tell (frustrating that we cannot pause GIFs or have a full screen version to pore over) I think what they are doing is holding an attack poised to unleash when the cavalry reaches them. It is hard to say what most are wielding, but I think at least some are using javelins and yet I cannot see any thrown, certainly not near our end of the line before the charge hits, when it would be most useful to throw them. I think at least one soldier is using a javelin in melee mode, which is nonsensical really; the only advantage of that would be to possibly get a single jab in as the knights get slowed down in the middle of the pack, when a spear would be too long. One might argue that waiting for the charge to pass through before throwing javelins at the horsemens' backs would be effective because they cannot block with their shields from rearward attacks, but I personally cannot see any javelins thrown (I will take the word of it that one poster saw some thrown).
Perhaps this weapon choice behaviour would work better against attacking infantry? Even then, you would hope that more soldiers were using their spears, and javelins would need to be thrown as the enemy approached. That said, some spears certainly are being used, and in places where only a few knights hit the infantry in the first contact, some of them do get stopped dead and I see at least one rearing. I think many of the first contact cavalry get pushed through by the sheer momentum of their comrades bundling them onwards, which is great.
I disagree with the infantry needing pikes; first of all, it isn't really appropriate for the already broad sweep of history that this warfare is based on, and secondly it would make the game hard to balance. Having pikes would render a lot of cavalry almost useless against infantry (it wasn't in real life, not at all), and you then have the question of how that pike infantry performs against other infantry, not to mention missile troops. The answer to missiles would be dress them all in full plate armour; another anachronism, and more importantly probably not much fun.
Also, I don't have a problem with the lack of casualties in the charge. Firstly, we can see that the defending troops had their shields up; secondly that, in any case, neither side had very long lances/spears held in a braced or couched pose for the enemy to be impaled upon; and thirdly that most infantry seemed to be bowled over by the horses which, though obviously injurious and terrifying, probably wouldn't be fatal in many cases.
From the few sources I've read describing cavalry charges of this time, it was common for the cavalry to charge again and again (I specifically remember descriptions of this happening in a Norman battle in France and also a Byzantine battle against Slavic infantry), and that they would disrupt the infantry in this way rather than kill lots of them. I know this flies in the face of the often repeated idea that cavalry had to attack spear infantry in the rear or flanks, or wait for them to rout, to be effective. I've read history books and watched documentaries by proper historians (I remember one involving Normans in Italy) where this happens, it was very common; this is why heavy cavalry was so dominant for most of the medieval period- their tactics worked.
Another thing I don't like though is the amount of horse barding. I know this was a customised battle, but for aesthetic, immersive and balance reasons I dislike seeing so much uniformity and heavily armoured troops. I'd noticed a lot of the cavalry has horse barding in earlier videos. Presumably these are the top tier of Vlandian knights, but if they are based roughly on the Normans then I think horse barding in general is a bit inappropriate. I don't know of evidence for it having been used in Western Europe by migration era or early medieval armies. Moreover, it doesn't look great to me, it makes the horses look less real with them all clad in grey metal, and if I was to repeatedly come across them in battle I would be wondering where these Vlandians are finding so many smiths to make these large pieces of armour (not to mention the money)- for both these reasons it harms my immersion. Aesthetically though I think the effect in this GIF is worse because the knights themselves also seem to be wearing very similar items (helmets particularly) to one another. I would expect (and hope) that there is far more variety in equipment that a single troop-type uses in the actual game.
If horse armour is effective, then it will also make the knights very hard to dismount as well, so even if you do stab them when they charge at full speed, might they not die? Alternatively, if it is not very effective (possible, from what we have seen in some videos, though it could largely depend on damage settings) then it breaks the immersion a bit and so pointlessly looks less interesting than seeing the variety of horse colours would.
In summary then, I would have liked to see the infantry mostly using spears, and with the remainder throwing a javelin before the cavalry hits. It would also be nice if horse barding was only common amongst the cataphracts of the Empire; I would rather see it be in the minority amongst most heavy cavalry, even though it would mean some Vlandian knights would be easier to dismount than others. It would represent a few of the knights having exceptional wealth or the luck of coming across a horse bard via looting or a lord's gift.
Terco_Viejo said:Nitpicking: It seems that the charge "tends" to converge in a central point...I don't know if that's what you want to achieve. Personally I think that the charge "should" force a horizontality since it seems that the cavalry unit is charging in line formation.
If you focus on the end of the GIF, you can see that they are not all converging to a central point. There are plenty of knights far further down the line who are maintaining their position in the formation (in line with the red lines you drew), not converging towards the near-camera group. It is merely that the "camera" is close to where one of the most successful breakthroughs happened, and a clump of knights have made it rapidly through the enemy infantry, giving the impression of a wedge at this point. The converging impression may be also due to the knights closest to our end of the line (the left, where the camera is) coming from a wider position; it seems the cavalry line was a bit wider than the infantry one.
I was wowed by the GIF at first, it looks great, but there are a few problems to examine. As cool as the GIF looks, like other people I am frustrated to see that very few infantrymen appear to be using their spears. I thinks some are using their spears, and though it is hard to tell (frustrating that we cannot pause GIFs or have a full screen version to pore over) I think what they are doing is holding an attack poised to unleash when the cavalry reaches them. It is hard to say what most are wielding, but I think at least some are using javelins and yet I cannot see any thrown, certainly not near our end of the line before the charge hits, when it would be most useful to throw them. I think at least one soldier is using a javelin in melee mode, which is nonsensical really; the only advantage of that would be to possibly get a single jab in as the knights get slowed down in the middle of the pack, when a spear would be too long. One might argue that waiting for the charge to pass through before throwing javelins at the horsemens' backs would be effective because they cannot block with their shields from rearward attacks, but I personally cannot see any javelins thrown (I will take the word of it that one poster saw some thrown).
Perhaps this weapon choice behaviour would work better against attacking infantry? Even then, you would hope that more soldiers were using their spears, and javelins would need to be thrown as the enemy approached. That said, some spears certainly are being used, and in places where only a few knights hit the infantry in the first contact, some of them do get stopped dead and I see at least one rearing. I think many of the first contact cavalry get pushed through by the sheer momentum of their comrades bundling them onwards, which is great.
I disagree with the infantry needing pikes; first of all, it isn't really appropriate for the already broad sweep of history that this warfare is based on, and secondly it would make the game hard to balance. Having pikes would render a lot of cavalry almost useless against infantry (it wasn't in real life, not at all), and you then have the question of how that pike infantry performs against other infantry, not to mention missile troops. The answer to missiles would be dress them all in full plate armour; another anachronism, and more importantly probably not much fun.
Also, I don't have a problem with the lack of casualties in the charge. Firstly, we can see that the defending troops had their shields up; secondly that, in any case, neither side had very long lances/spears held in a braced or couched pose for the enemy to be impaled upon; and thirdly that most infantry seemed to be bowled over by the horses which, though obviously injurious and terrifying, probably wouldn't be fatal in many cases.
From the few sources I've read describing cavalry charges of this time, it was common for the cavalry to charge again and again (I specifically remember descriptions of this happening in a Norman battle in France and also a Byzantine battle against Slavic infantry), and that they would disrupt the infantry in this way rather than kill lots of them. I know this flies in the face of the often repeated idea that cavalry had to attack spear infantry in the rear or flanks, or wait for them to rout, to be effective. I've read history books and watched documentaries by proper historians (I remember one involving Normans in Italy) where this happens, it was very common; this is why heavy cavalry was so dominant for most of the medieval period- their tactics worked.
Another thing I don't like though is the amount of horse barding. I know this was a customised battle, but for aesthetic, immersive and balance reasons I dislike seeing so much uniformity and heavily armoured troops. I'd noticed a lot of the cavalry has horse barding in earlier videos. Presumably these are the top tier of Vlandian knights, but if they are based roughly on the Normans then I think horse barding in general is a bit inappropriate. I don't know of evidence for it having been used in Western Europe by migration era or early medieval armies. Moreover, it doesn't look great to me, it makes the horses look less real with them all clad in grey metal, and if I was to repeatedly come across them in battle I would be wondering where these Vlandians are finding so many smiths to make these large pieces of armour (not to mention the money)- for both these reasons it harms my immersion. Aesthetically though I think the effect in this GIF is worse because the knights themselves also seem to be wearing very similar items (helmets particularly) to one another. I would expect (and hope) that there is far more variety in equipment that a single troop-type uses in the actual game.
If horse armour is effective, then it will also make the knights very hard to dismount as well, so even if you do stab them when they charge at full speed, might they not die? Alternatively, if it is not very effective (possible, from what we have seen in some videos, though it could largely depend on damage settings) then it breaks the immersion a bit and so pointlessly looks less interesting than seeing the variety of horse colours would.
In summary then, I would have liked to see the infantry mostly using spears, and with the remainder throwing a javelin before the cavalry hits. It would also be nice if horse barding was only common amongst the cataphracts of the Empire; I would rather see it be in the minority amongst most heavy cavalry, even though it would mean some Vlandian knights would be easier to dismount than others. It would represent a few of the knights having exceptional wealth or the luck of coming across a horse bard via looting or a lord's gift.
I don't think it's a bug, I think it's because he is tracking one of the knights that hit the line just to the side of him, whereas the knight that actually hits him from the "front" is lagging behind his fellow knights a little bit.
Besides the incompetent infantry, I really like that now horse bumps seem to be toned down from Warband. There are several infantry who can attack despite a horse moving next to them. It seems horses can push people instead of giving them convulsions
So... its a bug then?DanAngleland said:
I mean, there is no logical reason for a soldier to turn his side completely to enemy, especially while enemy is on charge.
He is turning because he doesn't care about the others. He is focused on that particular enemy. AI just picked the nearest threat and positioned his shield accordingly. Not all of them doing this tho, only this guy and some other fellas. Because when you check the soldier at the right bottom side, he is first aligning himself with the first attacker wave but then immediately sees the other threat and turns to them.
