Early game balance/gameplay issues

[anoddhermit]

* The number of heavily armored troops you'll face from the beginning heavily penalizes trying use a bow or cutting weapon
* Cavalry become almost a necessity to survive, infantry practically unusable due to needing to outrun larger hostile groups of powerful cavalry units
* Excess of cavalry heavy outlaw groups
* High tier units too easily dispatch of large numbers of low-mid tiers

I recognize Pendor is meant to be a challenge and it's meant to take a longer time to rise to power, however I feel like the early game suffers right now from being too grindy. I'm completely fine with the progression speed, in fact I think in most mods becoming a powerful lord or king is too short and simple, I just wish the earlier part of it in Pendor was more fun. You can't really engage in interesting combat, as you're stuck with pure cavalry and often facing other cavalry - you know whether you can win or not from the start usually as it's pretty simple math. Right now I pretty much avoid large groups and hunt down outlaws I know I can take, and my character uses a blunt tip lance, warhammer, 2h mace for dealing with the amount of heavily armored units and for taking prisoners to fun my group of ~40ish adventurers and similar mounted units I've hired from enemy prisoner pools. I've tried using a bow and it's utterly useless against most enemies, crossbow is okay, but for the most part ranged combat on low level character or troops seems to be a no-go - the archer units I've tried making use of so far have been fodder for cavalry.

I'm sure things get better later on and I know archery becomes very powerful once you have high power draw and a powerful bow, and of course higher level ranged units which will have both as well. However, it'd be nice if the early game wasn't so dull.

 

[Mad Vader]

If anything, Native's lame bandits are too grindy. PoP has a really large variety of parties to fight and you should use your judgement and experience to pick your battles.
There's no reason why you should be able to succeed with a low-level inf/arch/cav mix, which seems to be why you are complaining.
When in doubt, run away. The early game is the most exciting part for me personally, simply because you are vulnerable and not at all guaranteed to beat any bandits you meet like in Native.

 

[krisvk]

I love the early game and I never uses cavalry other than my few companions at the start, you're right about the bow, but I have just learned to only shoot unarmoured troops so it isn't really a problem, (think low level troops and fierdsvain berserkers and Empire gladiators)

 

[Shire]

Bow scaling gets out of hand so fast that it's good it poses some challenge early game.

 

[ms_ts_2007]

* The number of heavily armored troops you'll face from the beginning heavily penalizes trying use a bow or cutting weapon
* Cavalry become almost a necessity to survive, infantry practically unusable due to needing to outrun larger hostile groups of powerful cavalry units
* Excess of cavalry heavy outlaw groups
* High tier units too easily dispatch of large numbers of low-mid tiers

1. Learn to deliver couched lance hits - you can solo at lvl 1 heavy armored knights no problem. Sure, you cant do it with a bow or a cutting weapon, but such is the life of Pendor.

2. Get pathfinding, get companions with pathfinding, get some horses into your inventory, be mounted. Get the companions to be mounted. There, you now have enough speed to outrun the  larger hostile groups of powerful cavalry units that you should be soloing with couched lance hits.
3. They are actually too few  cavalry heavy outlaw groups, there are more vaskeris raiders and mystmountain bandits spawns.
4. I see that as a great feature, thank you very much

 

[burnbaby]

anoddhermit -> early game is easy if you know what you doing, no need to change anything just learn how to play :>

 

[freyuk]

PoP keeps what was one of the better feature of Mount & Blade when it came out. Moving around in the map when you start is really dangerous, as it should be, it is a kingdom divided, ravaged by constant war, banditry and incursions by savages. That is what makes building your party so rewarding, and tentatively be able to take on bigger enemies as a bloody defeat can be crushing. I spend a lot of the early game running from other parties, but when I see a chance I am ruthless. Starting is balanced, you can either use Lance or Crossbow, both requires no skill to inflict heavy damage (couched dmg and high dmg base by crossbow). Then you move to more skilful weapons that get a better benefit from your stats. Using archers require combined armies, good terrain use, and time to deploy them in good order of battle. And like others say, you have to pick your fights wisely.

 

[Zanze]

I may have read this wrong, but you are complaining that the early game is too hard and the endgame is too easy right? Your solution is to then babysit the player early game to ensure that the entire game is easy?

One of the reasons I love Pendor so damn much is the difficulty of early game. I start a game of native and have my 11 recruits attacked by 30 sea raiders and think: "Yawn, now I have to run circles and lance these guys for a long time till I win. I will win."  Now I get attacked by 30 anything with 11 recruits and think of how screwed I am in most cases(Snake Cult when I have 3-4PS, Heretic Magnii, Mystmountain berserkers, etc). Or how many times I'll have to save reload to get it right. (Yes I save reload)


Another thing about the early game I like is how...unimportant you are. The world is going, and it isn't revolving around you. That's a problem and it is up to your early game to -make- the world revolve around you. It isn't going to be hand fed to you, so start strategizing and playing smart. Do what the AI cannot and think of solutions, not reactions. How can you outrun heavily armored bandits? Where do these plate armored demons spawn? Where do the weaker enemies spawn? Where can I easily make money? etc

 

[AnddyiRaynor]

It'd be more harder late game if you couldn't stockpile lords in your prison.

 

[anoddhermit]

I may have read this wrong, but you are complaining that the early game is too hard and the endgame is too easy right? Your solution is to then babysit the player early game to ensure that the entire game is easy?

One of the reasons I love Pendor so damn much is the difficulty of early game. I start a game of native and have my 11 recruits attacked by 30 sea raiders and think: "Yawn, now I have to run circles and lance these guys for a long time till I win. I will win."  Now I get attacked by 30 anything with 11 recruits and think of how screwed I am in most cases(Snake Cult when I have 3-4PS, Heretic Magnii, Mystmountain berserkers, etc). Or how many times I'll have to save reload to get it right. (Yes I save reload)


Another thing about the early game I like is how...unimportant you are. The world is going, and it isn't revolving around you. That's a problem and it is up to your early game to -make- the world revolve around you. It isn't going to be hand fed to you, so start strategizing and playing smart. Do what the AI cannot and think of solutions, not reactions. How can you outrun heavily armored bandits? Where do these plate armored demons spawn? Where do the weaker enemies spawn? Where can I easily make money? etc

You have read this wrong, most people in here have actually.

The issue isn't difficulty, it's group make-up. I feel like the early game really demands almost pure cavalry if you want to avoid the outlaw knights and such that are much faster than an infantry/archer group. And...I think cavalry vs. cavalry battles are boring.

Eventually I can get higher tier units from prisoner pools that work as infantry/archers, but I end up with random high level units and I prefer having a more organized looking group. It'd be nice if I could train up infantry/archers, but they just get cut down by the heavily armored knights. Bringing nobles up to adventurers seems to be the best option by far.

My character is level 18 and so far it's just been cheesing the limited AI with the or using superior heavy cavalry. Just not finding any good/fun battles because there just doesn't seem to be a practical use for infantry/archers - they're pure suicide early on.

 

[krisvk]

Get some barclay mercs, they allow you to train up troops while still having an army that can beat most outlaw knights,

 

[Captain_Octavius]

You have read this wrong, most people in here have actually.

The issue isn't difficulty, it's group make-up. I feel like the early game really demands almost pure cavalry if you want to avoid the outlaw knights and such that are much faster than an infantry/archer group. And...I think cavalry vs. cavalry battles are boring.

Eventually I can get higher tier units from prisoner pools that work as infantry/archers, but I end up with random high level units and I prefer having a more organized looking group. It'd be nice if I could train up infantry/archers, but they just get cut down by the heavily armored knights. Bringing nobles up to adventurers seems to be the best option by far.

My character is level 18 and so far it's just been cheesing the limited AI with the or using superior heavy cavalry. Just not finding any good/fun battles because there just doesn't seem to be a practical use for infantry/archers - they're pure suicide early on.

Check out the second post in this thread: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,270452.0.html

My story of starting a foot character with only infantry and archers. It's definitely doable, but you need to have proper companions first with at least some Trainer, and you need to pick the right bandits. The mountain parties around Poinsbruk have relatively little cavalry and you can make use of either mountains or water to significantly slow them down. Pathfinding is important, I recommend investing in it yourself for the extra bonus. That way you can still outrun fast cavalry parties, or at least take refuge in a nearby castle or town until they're out of sight.

 

[noosers]

Keep your party small.
If you´re running around with 40ish mid tiers you´re bound for trouble, especially if all you have is infantry and archers as you´re too whimpy to easily win against the ~35 rogue knight and treasure hunter parties. The downside is, bloodbath. The upside is, great loot.

All cavalry isn´t a must. It´s nice for map speed but usually a well mixed force of infantry archers and cavalry will win the day.

As others have stated, get pathfinding and spotting or the pathfinding and spotting companions and pick your battles wisely. Means learn how to play, learn how pathfinding works and why you keep some spare horsies in your inventory.

What really surprised me are the awesome answers and replies in this thread. Looks like I am not the only one liking the early game most of a regular playthrough.

 

[freyuk]

I use Ravenstern troops, for archers and infantry, in early game and works out very well, shield wall, and archers a respectable distance behind or they will swap for hand to hand  weapon, and very tight formations, you and small cavalry force made sure the enemy doesn't attack your archers, so you normally are between infantry and archers or behind archers. You lose mostly infantry this way and you have to learn to leapfrog keeping the formation if you are on the offensive, what you cannot do in early game is beat parties a lot bigger than yours. It is difficult as you may have to be very quick with positioning but is lots of fun.

 

[SilentK]

I think its pretty realistic, they do scale with your level, but doesn't mean everyone is a ragged bandit since you are level 1 (aka, just "arrived" in pendor), the war has been going, stuff has been happening all along, you showing up, means nothing.

For the sake of balance there is level scale.

But you gotta pick your battles, and as you said you can't afford spamming your limit party with village recruits, they slow you down and allow others to easily pick you off, get mercenaries early on, but only a handful and go fight laria bandits (easiest and plenty), or if thats too much, random bandit parties that are all over the map (except d'shar).

Obviously don't pick to stay in d'shar, empire or fierd lands, they are either too fast, or too strong, more common, both...