Formation system need a rework: infantry just can't fight properly

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SerHamlet

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Thanks to Reddit user
hoanganh9399
's video to illustrate how dense formation is always blocking attack: the formation just won't work, its not shield wall but meat shield.
(here is the link: )

I tried myself and confirmed imperial infantry always lose to imperial archers in custom battle (whenever the battle size is larger than 300). This is really frustrating. I like how cavalry and archers being efficient, but so shall disciplined infantry square be more than a doomed blob, they should be a hard rock with sharp edges, hard to crack.

A side-effect of problematic formation is the infantry square behind city gate: if you are able to open the gate and squeeze through to their back, they are just free kills!
 
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Infantry is badly broken in this game atm and cavalry can ride through formations like nothing.

That's true! With equal quantity (200,300,400), heavy cavalries suffer a lot against archers (with very short weapons), but only a few against spearmen (long spears and medium length swords), which is absurd. More annoyingly is that I know what is causing this, but I have no idea how to fix it: it's the 'block friendly troops' attack' feature.
 
This has been mentioned before multiple times but all of those threads get buried.
Formations really need to be developed to have more use than just aesthetics which is more or less what they're used for now.
Shield walls need to be imposing, tight and strong. Infantry with no shields that get called into one need to placed at the back and there needs to be options for spear-shield walls as well.
 
This has been mentioned before multiple times but all of those threads get buried.
Formations really need to be developed to have more use than just aesthetics which is more or less what they're used for now.
Shield walls need to be imposing, tight and strong. Infantry with no shields that get called into one need to placed at the back and there needs to be options for spear-shield walls as well.

if formations are implemented right, like shieldwalls, the troops should assert to stab at the enemy while holding the line, ye cant swing a sword in a shield wall without hitting yer companion to yer right or left. (think roman legionary style, or fer spear think spartan phalanx) this is how a shieldwall is supposed to be used, as it is in game now, all soldiers just flail completely like madmen, and i saw a mod tha made soldiers space out more and not go into a blob o flailing weapons and flesh, this need to be implemented to as it takes out the formations because everyone cramps into this blob.
 
This has been mentioned before multiple times but all of those threads get buried.
Formations really need to be developed to have more use than just aesthetics which is more or less what they're used for now.
Shield walls need to be imposing, tight and strong. Infantry with no shields that get called into one need to placed at the back and there needs to be options for spear-shield walls as well.

Good to know there were discussions about this before: I read 8 pages of posts and found nothing about this issue and I was afraid that nobody is mad about it.
 
Good to see that people are slowly coming to the realization that combat is the problem in this situation.

We've made many threads about this problem in the multiplayer section of the forum actually.

,...

There are right now, way too many blunt hits in the game, it doesn't matter which weapon you're using, while in Warband you have a small angle to hit your targets, on Bannerlord you can hit targets in a very wide area, you can even hit targets that are behind you. Which results in a lot of blunt hits and the fact that your weapon gets stuck in almost everything, enemies, allies, walls,... That's why you've got so many problems with your infrantry units.
 
Good to see that people are slowly coming to the realization that combat is the problem in this situation.

We've made many threads about this problem in the multiplayer section of the forum actually.

,...

There are right now, way too many blunt hits in the game, it doesn't matter which weapon you're using, while in Warband you have a small angle to hit your targets, on Bannerlord you can hit targets in a very wide area, you can even hit targets that are behind you. Which results in a lot of blunt hits and the fact that your weapon gets stuck in almost everything, enemies, allies, walls,... That's why you've got so many problems with your infrantry units.

Excellent points. I was thinking about introducing a second set of animations (or to say, stance) with less spatial movement (less speed bonus). Let AI use the new stance when there are more than certain number of units within certain radius. But that's probably hard to implement, for as far as I know, M&B engine only allows for one set of animations for each weapon.

Speaking of MP, I really think the horse charge knockdown (more precisely, knock-away) mechanism should be implemented in SP, cavalries should be able to disrupt formations. Currently cavalries run into a blob of infantries, get flooded and can't get out(although still doing well against pure melee infantries).
 
We've been alerting Taleworlds to this problem since the beginning of the Alpha. I know devs are working intensively on AI; however it's a pity that we don't see a significant advance on this issue fully established and optimized to date. This + combat system + combat inconsistecies is not the ideal scenario nowadays.
 
Once the fix formations the battles will be as perfect as a game can realistic make them for me.

Maybe infantry in formation should prioritize stabs and over swings in their attacks? This would help a bit on the "my comrade is blocking all my side swings" front.

Warband with all ts jankness still had infantry propelly fighting in shieldwall formation for mods that had it, its all i used with my heavy infantry in viking conquest for example and worked great
 
You can edit the radius for how close infantry can be to each other in the documents, and it makes infantry fights a lot better and last a lot longer. It's not ideal but it's a temporary fix for the mess of infantry fights.

If you're in a shield wall though, you can almost never overhead swing with your weapon, as it just gets blocked by the person behind you when you release the attack, despite the bots seemingly able to overhead swing just fine in the same situation. This is very frustrating and makes you pretty much useless in a tight shield wall fight, and this needs to be addressed. I haven't seen many people mention this.

And this is not just for spears, either, this is all weaponry.
 
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if formations are implemented right, like shieldwalls, the troops should assert to stab at the enemy while holding the line, ye cant swing a sword in a shield wall without hitting yer companion to yer right or left. (think roman legionary style, or fer spear think spartan phalanx) this is how a shieldwall is supposed to be used, as it is in game now, all soldiers just flail completely like madmen, and i saw a mod tha made soldiers space out more and not go into a blob o flailing weapons and flesh, this need to be implemented to as it takes out the formations because everyone cramps into this blob.

The Romans fought loose order with chopping swings, not shoulder to shoulder, at least until they adopted a more spear centered infantry line in the later empire. They didn't fight like the vikings, or a phalangite.

The Greek style of warfare pre phalangite was also incredibly chaotic and not given to formations. The Spartans may be an exception, in that they at least learned how to march in formation, which was beyond your average greek hoplite, but it's not entirely known how sophisticated their actual battlefield formations would be. Even a basic level of discipline and training would put them head and shoulders above how most greeks fought.
 
I really want TaleWorlds to look back at the formation systems in Viking Conquest. The shield walls were perfect, shields in front, staggered half a man as to allow swords/axes to attack from two lines deep, and spears reaching up to 3 men deep. In a skein, the heaviest infantry up front, tapering to the lightest at the ends of the wedge. We could also use a better way of creating line formations, for example creating a staggered skirmish line can be extremely difficult on flat terrain.
 
if formations are implemented right, like shieldwalls, the troops should assert to stab at the enemy while holding the line, ye cant swing a sword in a shield wall without hitting yer companion to yer right or left. (think roman legionary style, or fer spear think spartan phalanx) this is how a shieldwall is supposed to be used, as it is in game now, all soldiers just flail completely like madmen, and i saw a mod tha made soldiers space out more and not go into a blob o flailing weapons and flesh, this need to be implemented to as it takes out the formations because everyone cramps into this blob.

Yo, what mod was it?
 
Yo, what mod was it?
i think it was this one or another one on nexus mod section

it should help with the npc collision making em space out a bit more then go into a flailing blob
 
I really want TaleWorlds to look back at the formation systems in Viking Conquest. The shield walls were perfect, shields in front, staggered half a man as to allow swords/axes to attack from two lines deep, and spears reaching up to 3 men deep. In a skein, the heaviest infantry up front, tapering to the lightest at the ends of the wedge. We could also use a better way of creating line formations, for example creating a staggered skirmish line can be extremely difficult on flat terrain.

Actually I won't even mind the formation system rework being a DLC (just like VC).
 
Actually I won't even mind the formation system rework being a DLC (just like VC).
Creating a problem yourself, then selling a fix for it? You've just invented capitalism.

Back the original topic though, there doesn't seem to be much individual trooper AI to speak of, not yet, anyway. Infantry was way more efficient in Warband, in fact. I guess it has to do with fancy weapon collision physics that make an entire half of soldier trees obsolete at the moment.

Ah, Early Access. I trust TW to fix that, I'm just sad it wasn't something they decided to make functional before going EA.
 
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