i kinda miss the poor aim noob archers

[roadworker]

both on player and ai. i dont see much difference between a newbie archer and a master archer other than a tiny extra damage and little more speed. i miss their really long insecure draws, the really poor aim they had where their arrows would go flying anywhere, and when the arrows did hit something, it was for f all dmg. and then gradually, as you practiced, you started to actually hit the thing you targeted, or at least the guy next door, and the draw speed was a little more bearable, and now you might actually hit and kill some already wounded troop, until you eventually became that badass archer that all archers currently are in b lord, wiping out anything staining your view

that is another thing, the melee combat. have you ever been rushed by infantry while commanding the archers in your army and then you told them to stop firing? the archers wipe out the infantry in a couple seconds like its their game, too. the infantry should crush them, only with tiny little casualties from their already badly wounded guys. the archers should not be happy to go into close combat with the infantry, they should want to avoid that at all cost

the combat skills dont make much sense, they are too forgiving in early levels, too damaging and too accurate.
your only focus as a noob player or noob recruit from some hillbilly farm should really just be to try and land a few hits, even if they damage nothing, so you get a feel of how it works and properly excercise your swinging arm in ways the hoe and pitchfork did not. and the ai newbie archer has to try and survive, so they, as noobs who were just taken from their simple peasant life and thrown into ranged warfare, can learn how to properly draw a bow, and train their arm and balance, to send an arrow flying that can pierce a skull, all while trying to stay out of trouble and follow their leader

it also makes the patience to wait for trained recruits in towns and villages pay off more, instead of sweeping noob recruits clean rapidly over and over. if some kingdom has to sweep up noob recruits all the time because they get recklessly defeated this often, they should also suffer for it. and it should also introduce the tactic of not just going out and besieging, but staying on the defensive, inside bordering castles and towns, to instead try and curb the enemy forces through siege equipment, not through weak recruits. and the enemy has to accept these tough siege targets, or the daunting alternative of capturing a fief surrounded by enemy territory. and if they do that, they will face the wrath of a composed large hillbilly farmer army rushing against them from all the nearby towns and castles they waited in, then the ant army might just crush the almighty beetle shell and tear it apart

i just miss the ridiculous newbie combat in warband, mostly because it made the veteran combat all that more satisfying to reach into. idk if i am alone

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I agree there should be more difference between higher and lower tier archers, although I have noticed a noticeable difference between fire range in even just 20 skill difference in units. The problem with archers out swording the infantry is because the "skill" of melee barely does anything. I think it's a carry over from MP captain mode where they want the stinky peasant option to be viable against knights and such.

However I feel the firing range of low tier units is a bit annoying as they fire just fine from the distance where to the human player the enemy is just a little spec and landing a hit is a lot of effort . I'm also annoyed by thier rate of fire, as a character with 200+ skill and speed boosting perks it's kinda lame to get shot at the same rate by militia archers. I have wondered if they're just not using the reticle closing timing the way the player does, so they always shoot faster then the player expects.

For the starting character I think Bow is close to the derpyness of warband, it takes aa good 3-4 body shots from steppe bow to kill a looter and they can easily match you with stones. I feel it's pretty wimpy until I snag a noble bow, then it's pretty good and about equal to a warbow in warband.

 

[roadworker]

I agree there should be more difference between higher and lower tier archers, although I have noticed a noticeable difference between fire range in even just 20 skill difference in units. The problem with archers out swording the infantry is because the "skill" of melee barely does anything. I think it's a carry over from MP captain mode where they want the stinky peasant option to be viable against knights and such.

However I feel the firing range of low tier units is a bit annoying as they fire just fine from the distance where to the human player the enemy is just a little spec and landing a hit is a lot of effort . I'm also annoyed by thier rate of fire, as a character with 200+ skill and speed boosting perks it's kinda lame to get shot at the same rate by militia archers. I have wondered if they're just not using the reticle closing timing the way the player does, so they always shoot faster then the player expects.

For the starting character I think Bow is close to the derpyness of warband, it takes aa good 3-4 body shots from steppe bow to kill a looter and they can easily match you with stones. I feel it's pretty wimpy until I snag a noble bow, then it's pretty good and about equal to a warbow in warband.

well, lets see. i think its fine that it takes some time to kill looters with little to no skill and a poor bow, and i have not really experienced any issues with hitting far away targets, you eventually get a feel of how high or low to aim, how far the arrows and bolts travel. for medium range, like standing at one of the far away barricaded walls in a siege, you can pay attention to where the dirt flies up when your missile hits so you can keep adjusting that way. but it looks like there is an issue similar to one that was present in warband, at least for the crossbow. you actually shoot a bit right-sided to what the reticle displays, so its better to try and make the right horizontal line aim at the target instead of the middle of the reticle. i think there is a similar, more complex issue as a mounted archer, depending on which way you aim the bow

as for the looters rocks, they damage a lot because they are blunt, they ignore a lot of your armor, you might as well be a naked target. and it gets even worse if you ride towards them, giving them a speed multiplier. so it best to both strafe and ride a bit away from them if you are a mounted archer, though it will also cost you damage. if you are on foot, you can take advantage of them locking in their aim as soon as they throw, then it can be sidestepped safely. if you run one side and then sidestep the other way when they throw, its guaranteed that they wont hit you because now they try to lock in their aim to where you *should* be if you kept sidestepping the other way, throwing their rocks even further away from you


in warband, i remember if you played mounted archer and you were poorly skilled in both horse archery and power draw, you would damage looters close to 0, sometimes exactly 0 if you were riding away because of speed loss. it was mostly headshots that actually dealt something, but it was only around 20 damage. it made sense though - you were a poor rider, a poor archer and had absolutely no skill doing both simultaneously. then you had the poor bow efficiency that lowered your accuracy to the point where the reticle touched every side of the screen unless you slowed down your horse significantly, but you would still likely miss. in the same way, as a foot archer, even if you stood still and took careful aim, your reticle would bloom out near half of the screen

i would like a similar experience for bannerlord. except, instead of gaining bow or crossbow efficiency from dealing a lucky headshot as a noob ranger, or instead of having to level your ranged skills by killing something, you simply have to hit the target even if it deals zero damage to improve your ranged skill, same for troop rangers in your party. they will gain experience from hitting, not just killing targets. but i think it already works like that, so the only thing left is indeed just to make the skills have a poor start, for accuracy, speed, and damage. and, i also noticed ranged weapons still are ridiculously priced. throwing knives cost around 100-400, javelins cost around 10.000-12.000... harpoons cost nearly 20.000. then you have starter bows costing around a thousand, other bows cost between ten thousand and thirty thousand. i think they are still not entirely done balancing these weapons, if the prices are still this unbalanced. even though knives are inexpensive and do not do a lot of damage, you can only carry 4 of them, like their much more damaging javelin counterpart. i hope when they balance these weapons properly, they will make sure the cheap weapons get you what you pay for - poor damage and plenty of chances to practice - but if you invest in a little better and have the skills to use them, then it will also serve you well. i literally could not find anything other than light crossbows in my current long playthrough, so i dont know how those handle differently. i think a lot of items just kind of disappeared. like all aserai towns only mass produced and sold the same two pairs of shoes and one pair of gauntlets in the end

 

[Dabos37]

Yep, performance gap between high/low skilled units is pretty small, and the only thing which makes high tier units stronger, is equipment. As player you do have not issues to defeat anyone if having 50 weapon skill, as long as you wear a decent sword.

I also miss the much bigger gap between low and high skilled units like in Warband. Would be great if skill damage bonus would be duplicated, while all weapons’ damage gets nerfed accordingly. I suppose we are going to get a mod for that.

 

[Mabons]

It's spilling over into other things too, one of the biggest complaints of Bannerlord Online is that you spend hours training a troop into a Tier 5 only for him to die in the next fight to a looter. Feelsbadman.

 

[vonbalt]

Yep, performance gap between high/low skilled units is pretty small, and the only thing which makes high tier units stronger, is equipment. As player you do have not issues to defeat anyone if having 50 weapon skill, as long as you wear a decent sword.

I also miss the much bigger gap between low and high skilled units like in Warband. Would be great if skill damage bonus would be duplicated, while all weapons’ damage gets nerfed accordingly. I suppose we are going to get a mod for that.

And equipment is also almost useless with the current damage/armor formula which is a step down compared to warband where armor actually mattered.

So all in all higher tier troops are a complete waste of investment for now until they make skills more useful and armor actually works like armor instead of wet toilet paper.

 

[Dabos37]

And equipment is also almost useless with the current damage/armor formula which is a step down compared to warband where armor actually mattered.

So all in all higher tier troops are a complete waste of investment for now until they make skills more useful and armor actually works like armor instead of wet toilet paper.

I do not have a strong opinion about this to be honest. Maybe armor effectiveness should be improved as many people are asking for, but armor is currently not worthless at all. Legionaries are for sure pretty damn effective compared to other units less armored. I think the actual issue is more about blunt damage being too effective against armor (yes, blunt damage should be effective against armor, but maybe it is currently too effective fulfilling this role), and weapon skill being totally worthless. Low tier units defeating high tier units and nobles in tournaments is something pretty common.

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

I think the actual issue is more about blunt damage being too effective against armor

Not just blunt damage, I bought most expensive armors in the game and still enemy archers with 2-3 shots killed me. I installed Realistic Battle Mod which makes armor a viable option. I also use bows and with that mod you instantly makes sense of which enemy you can do signifcant damage or not with bow. Because visiually if any kind of metal is on a soldier, you understand bow is useless. But still archers is a relevant option in your army since lords armies is not made of fully upgraded soldiers and with too much war going on in Calradia, the player army is also like that so both for npc lords and the player, archers are still a viable option. Also, with those changes, battles are not long enough to make the player bored, at least for my taste and for 2.1k endorsments on Nexus. So I truly don't understand why TW is persistent with this ridiculous armor/damage formula.

 

[Dabos37]

Not just blunt damage, I bought most expensive armors in the game and still enemy archers with 2-3 shots killed me. I installed Realistic Battle Mod which makes armor a viable option. I also use bows and with that mod you instantly makes sense of which enemy you can do signifcant damage or not with bow. Because visiually if any kind of metal is on a soldier, you understand bow is useless. But still archers is a relevant option in your army since lords armies is not made of fully upgraded soldiers and with too much war going on in Calradia, the player army is also like that so both for npc lords and the player, archers are still a viable option. Also, with those changes, battles are not long enough to make the player bored, at least for my taste and for 2.1k endorsments on Nexus. So I truly don't understand why TW is persistent with this ridiculous armor/damage formula.

Oh yes, I forgot archers. Yes, if you read my older messages, you are going to find that I have always complained about OP archers. I have to give it a try to the Realistic Battle Mod. I tried it some time ago and archers were pretty OP but it looks like things have changed.

Concerning damage formula, I am pretty sure that it is related to Captain Mode... Believe it or no, captain mode players find the current OP archers “weak”. Just think about what they would say if archers would not able to delete heavy infantry units like it is happening currently.

 

[vonbalt]

I do not have a strong opinion about this to be honest. Maybe armor effectiveness should be improved as many people are asking for, but armor is currently not worthless at all. Legionaries are for sure pretty damn effective compared to other units less armored. I think the actual issue is more about blunt damage being too effective against armor (yes, blunt damage should be effective against armor, but maybe it is currently too effective fulfilling this role), and weapon skill being totally worthless. Low tier units defeating high tier units and nobles in tournaments is something pretty common.

not completely worthless yes but almost there lol

the best armors in-game used by top tier troops and lords are mitigating around 30-40% damage which means a 100 damage hit that would one-hit kill you will deal 60-70 damage instead and two-hit kill you, tree if you are lucky.

Most troops which falls on mid-tier range have armor mitigating around 20-30% at maximum and that's why they feel so worthless especially combined with skills barely mattering at all beyond 50 points or so.

Beyond all that the cherry on top of the cake is blunt damage ignoring 100% of your armor rating in the damage formula, warband was something around 75% if i recall correctly and it was already extremely powerful which was balanced by armor being stronger and blunt weapons having lower damage in general compared to cut and pierce weapons.

 

[Apocal]

Concerning damage formula, I am pretty sure that it is related to Captain Mode... Believe it or no, captain mode players find the current OP archers “weak”. Just think about what they would say if archers would not able to delete heavy infantry units like it is happening currently.

They are weak in Captain mode though. Because you only get a handful so they just miss a lot then get slaughtered. If SP players only had 12-15 archers, they wouldn't seem so OP.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

[...] So I truly don't understand why TW is persistent with this ridiculous armor/damage formula.

+1 It is truly beyond my understanding.

HeY bRo DoN't CrItIcIsE fUNcKiNg HaTeR, tHe GaMe Is StIlI iN eA!

If Taleworlds had stopped playing Jenga at the end of the closed beta period, we would have now:

✓ SP mode with balance and damage formula appropriate to each difficulty level.​

✓ Competitive MP mode (skirmish) - with its own balance that can be extrapolated to Siege, TDM, duel and that "new one life mode" that will arrive Soon™. Following the lines of playable experience of its predecessor.​

✓ Captain MP mode - with its own balance open to experimentation.​

But nope...almost June and back to the same thing over and over again....

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
@Dabos37 , try Realistic Battle on the go. I have Battle AI + Combat module installed and the difference is abysmal.

 

[Dabos37]

They are weak in Captain mode though. Because you only get a handful so they just miss a lot then get slaughtered. If SP players only had 12-15 archers, they wouldn't seem so OP.

Yes, maybe archers are weak in captain mode, and trying to balance all game modes at the same time is what mostly brings issues everywhere. At the end, we are going to be forced to use tons of mods for improving every single game area, but I suppose that this won’t surprise anyone and this is something expected for a M&B game.

+1 It is truly beyond my understanding.

HeY bRo DoN't CrItIcIsE fUNcKiNg HaTeR, tHe GaMe Is StIlI iN eA!

If Taleworlds had stopped playing Jenga at the end of the closed beta period, we would have now:

✓ SP mode with balance and damage formula appropriate to each difficulty level.​

✓ Competitive MP mode (skirmish) - with its own balance that can be extrapolated to Siege, TDM, duel and that "new one life mode" that will arrive Soon™. Following the lines of playable experience of its predecessor.​

✓ Captain MP mode - with its own balance open to experimentation.​

But nope...almost June and back to the same thing over and over again....

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
@Dabos37 , try Realistic Battle on the go. I have Battle AI + Combat module installed and the difference is abysmal.

I dislike the idea about using mods in EA because I would like to see vanilla as much improved as possible, but if this mod actually improve balancing, AI and overall game experiencia, I will for sure give it a try. Thanks.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

Yes, maybe archers are weak in captain mode, and trying to balance all game modes at the same time is what mostly brings issues everywhere. At the end, we are going to be forced to use tons of mods for improving every single game area, but I suppose that this won’t surprise anyone and this is something expected for a M&B game.




I dislike the idea about using mods in EA because I would like to see vanilla as much improved as possible, but if this mod actually improve balancing, AI and overall game experiencia, I will for sure give it a try. Thanks.

Of course, the mods - at least in my case - are to spice up my gameplay experience within the native game. Obviously when I carry out a test or give feedback (like the tests we carry out regarding the archers) the base is always Native.

The problem is that because certain points of development don't seem to progress/improve... sadly one has to look for alternatives to fill the shortcomings of the base game, which these days are unfortunately numerous.

 

[KingEroc1st]

The problem with archers out swording the infantry is because the "skill" of melee barely does anything

exactly, the 1h or 2h skill doesn't matter nearly as much as athletic and it's subsequent movement speed boost and resulting attack damage multiplier from speed.

i have a couple of interesting companions and every tournament they end up fighting each other in some way. one guy has 0 1h skill and 250 athletic. while the other has 250 1h and 50 athletic. and the result of their fights are always one sided with the athletic guy scoring consecutive hits while not getting hit once.