Heroes aren't heroes, they are flies.

[Seafoodking]

In BL heroes are like flies, they don't know how to protect themselves in a battle, and even with the most prowess combat skills they can barely score more than 3 kills in a fight. With highest AI combat difficulty, you feel a some challenge from them in the tournaments. However in a battle, they lack the ability to lead a formation, nor make any differences in the combat. With over 1000+ hours of playing BL, I will conclude the reasons are:

1. Aggressiveness of the heroes

• Often, they don't attack much, nor do they try to charge your line of archers with his cavalry formation.

2. Awareness of their surroundings

• Especially in melee, they act like mindless zombies and gets bashed to the head from all side and fall. They don't try to get to a better position when they're surrounded.

3. Lack of tactical intelligence

• The heroes tend to just sit there in a battle. Their only capability is to block when you get near.

Real heroes should have the ability to lead his formation and charge your formations. A melee based hero with superior melee combat skills should make differences in breaking down enemy's infantry. Cavalry heroes should be able to flank the archers or the infantries from the weak sides. Ranged heroes should be deadly to other heroes if you tried to get near them without any projectile protection.

A formation led by competent heroes will make BL much more challenging and fun. As of now, battles feel almost identical, and repetitive.

 

[five bucks]

Issues with defending are pretty endemic in the AI of all troops including heroes, another problem is that the protection provided by armor is a joke; if the armor damage model was fixed to give much better protection against arrows and a bit better protection against melee, we would see heroes equipped in high-tier armor surviving for far longer.

 

[Seafoodking]

Issues with defending are pretty endemic in the AI of all troops including heroes, another problem is that the protection provided by armor is a joke; if the armor damage model was fixed to give much better protection against arrows and a bit better protection against melee, we would see heroes equipped in high-tier armor surviving for far longer.

I had installed mods that buffed armor, but sadly it doesn't fix the problem for the heroes suiciding themselves. They like to either run into bunch of enemies and die, or try to duel someone, and let 1-2 enemies kept hitting them from the back. The armor did make them take a few more strike, but they still die in a mindless way.

 

[darksoulshin]

I had installed mods that buffed armor, but sadly it doesn't fix the problem for the heroes suiciding themselves. They like to either run into bunch of enemies and die, or try to duel someone, and let 1-2 enemies kept hitting them from the back. The armor did make them take a few more strike, but they still die in a mindless way.

JOINT HURTBOXES and ARMOR HURTBOXES: an armor system that provide a way to balance factions warfare and make more deep the combat system(suggestions)

I wrote this thread to solve various problems, including the little protection offered by armor and their mere relying on a numerical parameter and nothing else.
Other problems that the thread deals with are the relationship between projectiles and armor and consequently the relationship between ranged units and melee units with various types of armor.
And as icing on the cake a greater depth of the combat system.

 

[Gandamula]

That's true, with a lower archery level I use to kill 10+ enemies, my party hero with archery maxed use to kill one or two, barley three, of course I use to come closer and hit from there, the hero, like the rest of units just run at full speed, shooting to the air.

 

[Seafoodking]

That's true, with a lower archery level I use to kill 10+ enemies, my party hero with archery maxed use to kill one or two, barley three, of course I use to come closer and hit from there, the hero, like the rest of units just run at full speed, shooting to the air.

Exactly, heroes suppose to bring diversity and challenges to the game. It should let players feel like to fight against different generals of an army.

 

[Ford Perfect]

Honestly the enemy heroes are basically almost all (if not one or two) dead after the first charge... as if they were not even there

 

[Seafoodking]

Honestly the enemy heroes are basically almost all (if not one or two) dead after the first charge... as if they were not even there

Most of the time I can just charge into their hero and slain him within a few hits. They're just clueless about this world and have no awareness about their surroundings. I don't mind TW to tweak them into an imbalance hardcore war machine that is very tough to beat, at least that will bring challenge to the game.

 

[Gandamula]

It is also funny that in tournaments the AI seems to know how to defend, block, counter attacks etc., but on the battlefield it is a mess.

 

[Seafoodking]

It is also funny that in tournaments the AI seems to know how to defend, block, counter attacks etc., but on the battlefield it is a mess.

You spoke my mind. I just wish TW can prioritize into combat AI, and campaign AI. I'm not a modder, and I highly doubt that AI are open for mod.

 

[Highest of all Landers]

It is also funny that in tournaments the AI seems to know how to defend, block, counter attacks etc., but on the battlefield it is a mess.

That is because there are few targets to choose from and the AI, especially with higher weapon skills, can handle itself well in 1v1s, but if you get 2v1 you can already see the issue the plagues battles.

Once it picks a target it acts like a zombie, it will just keep trying to murder the target with no regard for it's own existence, it has no awareness of it's surroundings and will throw itself at impossible odds.

Using formations hides this a little because individual agents have their movement constrained.

No amount of changes to armors will fix this and adding more complexity to the current combat formula will just **** it up even worse.

 

[Midnitewolf]

It is also funny that in tournaments the AI seems to know how to defend, block, counter attacks etc., but on the battlefield it is a mess.

I am running and enhanced AI mod that has them doing a ton more active blocking as well as much smarter things in battle, however the performance hit is massive. I have a pretty high end rig that I spent over $3000 on and by loading this modded AI, which I love by the way, I went from a fully smooth and cinematic experience to lots of frame drops, stutters and hitches.

My point is, I think the AI is the way it is in the battles because even current high end CPUs can't handle the extra number of calculations needed for a better AI and still run smoothly with a large amount of troops on the battlefield.

As for companions and honestly AI lords, even if the AI has to be dumbed down on regular troops due to performance issues, they should have their own separate AI that makes them act like like the heroes they should be on the battlefield. It is really said where I might have 30 kills and the max any of my companions managed was like 2 and most didn't even get a single kill.

 

[Aurex]

The status of the AI is rather terrible right now. They lack awareness and they are extremely slow to react - if they react at all. I've seen countless cavalry charges against empty woods, horse archers slamming into a shield wall because why not.
Sadly the companions/heroes use the same (or a very much identical) AI the other units do, thus making them braindead morons who will occasionally do something useful. A little bit like Homer Simpson, I guess.

 

[CrazyElf]

I am running and enhanced AI mod that has them doing a ton more active blocking as well as much smarter things in battle, however the performance hit is massive. I have a pretty high end rig that I spent over $3000 on and by loading this modded AI, which I love by the way, I went from a fully smooth and cinematic experience to lots of frame drops, stutters and hitches.

What mod are you running?

Right now the issue is the AI is not very smart altogether. Part of it is due to performance - computers aren't powerful enough, but another part of it is that coding for intelligent AI is really hard to do well.

 

[Mad Vader]

The status of the AI is rather terrible right now. They lack awareness and they are extremely slow to react - if they react at all. I've seen countless cavalry charges against empty woods, horse archers slamming into a shield wall because why not.
Sadly the companions/heroes use the same (or a very much identical) AI the other units do, thus making them braindead morons who will occasionally do something useful. A little bit like Homer Simpson, I guess.

You just need the correct mod to fix this: Everyone Is Homer Simpson mod.

 

[Seafoodking]

As for companions and honestly AI lords, even if the AI has to be dumbed down on regular troops due to performance issues, they should have their own separate AI that makes them act like like the heroes they should be on the battlefield. It is really said where I might have 30 kills and the max any of my companions managed was like 2 and most didn't even get a single kill.

I'm glad I'm not alone in this, but lets hope TW sees this and do something about this.