Copy-paste of a thread I made on Steam, but considering that we haven't received a meaningful multiplayer balance patch in a while, I'm ready to think that whatever imbalances i'm looking at are intentional design decisions.
As to what imbalances i'm looking at:
Aserai and Sturgia
These factions seem to struggle the most against heavy armor, since they overrely on a fairly fragile unit to deal with heavily armored opponents.
I can understand the desert-borne culture not incorporating a heavy infantry unit because design aesthetics are a thing, though I feel like they need to make up for the lack of heavy infantry with an increased ability to kill armored opponents. I wanna think a decent way to fix this would be to give the Guard a fast-swinging Quarterstaff that's also a bastard polearm as a possible replacement for the Improved Armor Perk 1 perk (especially since the Perk 2 Sturdy perk does basically the same thing)
Improving Sturgia's anti-armor capabilities would probably be more complicated, since the dev team seems insistent on making the Varyag an axe specialist. Realistically, I think the only classes that can be given a blunt weapon are the Hunter and Brigand. In the Hunter's case, the Shield perk actually downgrades your melee weapon on top of having the downside of having a worse bow than other factions' archers. I think having a blunt weapon on the light archer would be a good buff to the Shield perk, which might make it worth losing the Raider Axe and longbows.
Sturgia (cont'd)
Sturgia has other problems besides not being able to deal with armored opponents but to continue on the previous tangent about armor, let's talk about the Brigand. In regards to blunt weapons, I think the best way to introduce one to the throwing weapon class would be to have a low damage cudgel similar to the Khuzait Infantry Club employed by Improved Armor rabble.
Another downside that the Brigand has is the worse options for throwing weapons. The Throwing Spear requires you to sacrifice a quiver of javelins, and the Throwing Axes are so inaccurate that you're much better off pressing X to melee with them. Here's what I think needs to change with the throwing weapon perks:
Axe Thrower
Accuracy spread cut in half. They'll still be less accurate than javelins, but you should be able to bodyshot things at medium range now.
Quiver size increased to 5. You'll still have a smaller quiver than a javelin infantry with the Rapid Throws perk, but you'll at least have more projectiles to play around with.
Big Game Hunter
Also grants Vlandian Throwing Axes (3)
-Considering that they've been removed from the Volgier during Early Access, I think it's safe to assume that their stats remain unchanged. They should still be able to do ~40 bodyshot damage against unarmored targets, and 50-60 on headshots. The Throwing Spear perk will still remain to be the worst option for throwing weapons, but the addition of Vlandian throwing axes should give the Brigand a decent means to defend himself from peasants lacking the Improved Armor perk.
Moving onto the Varyag, I think they've been regarded as the worst heavy infantry in the game due to their lack of blunt weapons and cost. Again, since TaleWorlds seems to insist on making them an axe specialist, I wonder if they could add a Two-handed Axe perk similar to how the Vlandian Sergeant got the Noble Greatsword to make up for the removal of bastard swords. I think the best way to go around this would be to give him the Two-handed Woodsplitter Axe used by the Battanian light archer.
Empire
Honestly the worst faction in the game right now. You either play against them, or leave the server if you can't because they are THAT BAD.
Okay, they're actually an overwhelmingly average faction if you can ignore one specific fatal flaw, but the problem is that the aforementioned fatal flaw puts a lot of undue pressure on the player to either play perfectly or not at all. I'm talking about the Recruit, the absolute worst peasant unit in the game and they are so bad that even the intentionally bad farming tools on the Peasant Levy can make short work of them.
From a singleplayer standpoint, I can see the appeal of having wimpy units because they will often make up for their lack of raw power simply by being more numerous than the better trained and better equipped lower ranks of other factions. Since this conversation is about multiplayer however, one can safely assume that headcounts will be largely even, so you're not gonna outnumber anyone any time soon. So it's actually not a good idea for Empire players to have to 3v1 or 5v1 a 110-130 cost unit since the opportunity to do so will rarely ever present itself. However, I've since given up on the idea that Recruit will actually be a decent pick for late joiners, so I guess the next best thing would be to buff everything else to be worth a "ragequit if you die without scoring a kill" downside.
Archers
Also known as "If i wanted to play a shooter, Gundam Evolution exists". The only reason why Warband's multiplayer worked is because during the mid to late 2010s, the M&B multiplayer userbase followed an unspoken etiquette that involved NOT spamming an overpowered classs that renders infantry and cavalry unplayable.
M&B MP players in current year won't do that. Instead, they will spam the ever loving hell out of archers, and they don't even need to be good at the game, with the game just devolving into "Spam arrows at the enemy's general direction and you'll eventually kill something". The only reason why this doesn't work in Captain mode is because archers tend to have fewer models than other unit types.
In other modes, having more archers than the other team is usually a good way to win matches and driving prospective M&B MP users to play something else, since they obviously won't find a medieval PVP game here. Just a late 2000s shooter dressed up as a 2020 medieval game.
I think the only realistic way to fix archer spam would be to enforce class limits, so as to prevent the medieval game from devolving into "tactical shooter with a medieval skin". Class limits would also mean that people who pick the archer class damn well better be good with using a bow, cuz if they're just sitting on the class slot and not getting kills, they're not gonna win any popularity contests with their teammates
Of course, none of the issues i mentioned will ever be fixed because that's not how TaleWorlds wants people to play the multiplayer mode of Bannerlord.
As to what imbalances i'm looking at:
Aserai and Sturgia
These factions seem to struggle the most against heavy armor, since they overrely on a fairly fragile unit to deal with heavily armored opponents.
I can understand the desert-borne culture not incorporating a heavy infantry unit because design aesthetics are a thing, though I feel like they need to make up for the lack of heavy infantry with an increased ability to kill armored opponents. I wanna think a decent way to fix this would be to give the Guard a fast-swinging Quarterstaff that's also a bastard polearm as a possible replacement for the Improved Armor Perk 1 perk (especially since the Perk 2 Sturdy perk does basically the same thing)
Improving Sturgia's anti-armor capabilities would probably be more complicated, since the dev team seems insistent on making the Varyag an axe specialist. Realistically, I think the only classes that can be given a blunt weapon are the Hunter and Brigand. In the Hunter's case, the Shield perk actually downgrades your melee weapon on top of having the downside of having a worse bow than other factions' archers. I think having a blunt weapon on the light archer would be a good buff to the Shield perk, which might make it worth losing the Raider Axe and longbows.
Sturgia (cont'd)
Sturgia has other problems besides not being able to deal with armored opponents but to continue on the previous tangent about armor, let's talk about the Brigand. In regards to blunt weapons, I think the best way to introduce one to the throwing weapon class would be to have a low damage cudgel similar to the Khuzait Infantry Club employed by Improved Armor rabble.
Another downside that the Brigand has is the worse options for throwing weapons. The Throwing Spear requires you to sacrifice a quiver of javelins, and the Throwing Axes are so inaccurate that you're much better off pressing X to melee with them. Here's what I think needs to change with the throwing weapon perks:
Axe Thrower
Accuracy spread cut in half. They'll still be less accurate than javelins, but you should be able to bodyshot things at medium range now.
Quiver size increased to 5. You'll still have a smaller quiver than a javelin infantry with the Rapid Throws perk, but you'll at least have more projectiles to play around with.
Big Game Hunter
Also grants Vlandian Throwing Axes (3)
-Considering that they've been removed from the Volgier during Early Access, I think it's safe to assume that their stats remain unchanged. They should still be able to do ~40 bodyshot damage against unarmored targets, and 50-60 on headshots. The Throwing Spear perk will still remain to be the worst option for throwing weapons, but the addition of Vlandian throwing axes should give the Brigand a decent means to defend himself from peasants lacking the Improved Armor perk.
Moving onto the Varyag, I think they've been regarded as the worst heavy infantry in the game due to their lack of blunt weapons and cost. Again, since TaleWorlds seems to insist on making them an axe specialist, I wonder if they could add a Two-handed Axe perk similar to how the Vlandian Sergeant got the Noble Greatsword to make up for the removal of bastard swords. I think the best way to go around this would be to give him the Two-handed Woodsplitter Axe used by the Battanian light archer.
Empire
Honestly the worst faction in the game right now. You either play against them, or leave the server if you can't because they are THAT BAD.
Okay, they're actually an overwhelmingly average faction if you can ignore one specific fatal flaw, but the problem is that the aforementioned fatal flaw puts a lot of undue pressure on the player to either play perfectly or not at all. I'm talking about the Recruit, the absolute worst peasant unit in the game and they are so bad that even the intentionally bad farming tools on the Peasant Levy can make short work of them.
From a singleplayer standpoint, I can see the appeal of having wimpy units because they will often make up for their lack of raw power simply by being more numerous than the better trained and better equipped lower ranks of other factions. Since this conversation is about multiplayer however, one can safely assume that headcounts will be largely even, so you're not gonna outnumber anyone any time soon. So it's actually not a good idea for Empire players to have to 3v1 or 5v1 a 110-130 cost unit since the opportunity to do so will rarely ever present itself. However, I've since given up on the idea that Recruit will actually be a decent pick for late joiners, so I guess the next best thing would be to buff everything else to be worth a "ragequit if you die without scoring a kill" downside.
Archers
Also known as "If i wanted to play a shooter, Gundam Evolution exists". The only reason why Warband's multiplayer worked is because during the mid to late 2010s, the M&B multiplayer userbase followed an unspoken etiquette that involved NOT spamming an overpowered classs that renders infantry and cavalry unplayable.
M&B MP players in current year won't do that. Instead, they will spam the ever loving hell out of archers, and they don't even need to be good at the game, with the game just devolving into "Spam arrows at the enemy's general direction and you'll eventually kill something". The only reason why this doesn't work in Captain mode is because archers tend to have fewer models than other unit types.
In other modes, having more archers than the other team is usually a good way to win matches and driving prospective M&B MP users to play something else, since they obviously won't find a medieval PVP game here. Just a late 2000s shooter dressed up as a 2020 medieval game.
I think the only realistic way to fix archer spam would be to enforce class limits, so as to prevent the medieval game from devolving into "tactical shooter with a medieval skin". Class limits would also mean that people who pick the archer class damn well better be good with using a bow, cuz if they're just sitting on the class slot and not getting kills, they're not gonna win any popularity contests with their teammates
Of course, none of the issues i mentioned will ever be fixed because that's not how TaleWorlds wants people to play the multiplayer mode of Bannerlord.
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