Is character creation and general character development unbalanced?

[t1337Dude]

After retiring my first character and ready to create a second, I've began to wonder about something. What's the point to creating a non-leadership based character? This is assuming you'll be focusing on the INT and CHA attributes.

Leader Pros and Cons:
+ Can win battles with minimal effort
+ Can skirmish opposing Lords with ease
+ Can siege castles without the help of other lords
+ Can consistently loot and plunder enemy villages for large amounts of free money and supplies without villagers putting up a fight
+ Doesn't have to worry about bandits and sea raiders
+ Doesn't have to manually fight every battle
+ INT+CHA base gives you an unfair amount of extra skill points.
- Can have a rough time at the start of the game.
- You'll be spending a lot of your time training your men through repetitive battles and "Waiting".

A leadership based character doesn't need great gear to have fun in battle. All you need to do is buy (or loot) decent armor, equip a lance, and couch. And I know when you create a character, you can mix it up and give yourself warrior stats and leadership stats - but at that point why not just go all the way and be a war leader? I know play-to-win attitudes don't fair well in sandbox RPGs because all RPGs have useful skills, and useless skills. I feel like if you don't pick the best skills, you're just making it hard on yourself. Is the only way to get long-term enjoyment out of the base game is to roleplay (limit your character's skills and abilities for imaginative personality and story?).

 

[GreenGuy]

- It's **** boring. Same thing every battle.

 

[Zilberfrid]

warrior stats with a lot of renown due to soloing and a few handy companions work well too. as well as trade stats and a whole bunch of moneys

 

[alh_p]

Refering to the title of the OP, what exactly is unbalanced?

That you can do well in the game by picking non-combat skills?

I've never tried that because:

- It's **** boring. Same thing every battle.

And the fun in M&B IS the battles.

I always found I've done rather well (& had a great time) with prediominantly combat skills and a smattering of health & training skills.

 

[cfnz]

Each to their own, you play the game the way you want to. Personally I don't put any points into CHA, nor do I put any into leadership.

 

[t1337Dude]

Refering to the title of the OP, what exactly is unbalanced?

That you can do well in the game by picking non-combat skills?

I've never tried that because:

- It's **** boring. Same thing every battle.

And the fun in M&B IS the battles.

I always found I've done rather well (& had a great time) with prediominantly combat skills and a smattering of health & training skills.

My point is that you can only do very well in the game picking non-combat skills. What are you even supposed to do with a character focused entirely on combat skills? Fight bandits forever? Go town to town and participate in tournaments? I just don't get it. If you want to siege castles, you'll have to rely entirely on other lords to help you out. Which I suppose isn't entirely a terrible thing, but I imagine it gets repetitive really quick.

- It's **** boring. Same thing every battle.

What's the same thing every battle? How is it not the same when you play a warrior character?

Each to their own, you play the game the way you want to. Personally I don't put any points into CHA, nor do I put any into leadership.

So what do you do when you play? How do you progress?

 

[rageshrub]

I usually take whatever I need to be moderately effective in combat, so whatever strength I need to use decent gear and some points in powerstrike/riding/ironflesh and then pump the rest into CHA and leadership. INT skills can he handled by NPCs ,and seeing as the combat is largely skill based you don't need 10 ironflesh/10 powerstrike/ 10 riding to be effective.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

My point is that you can only do very well in the game picking non-combat skills.

Do what in the game? That's the crucial question here. M&B is a sandbox game, it doesn't have a goal that you're supposed to fulfill, therefore there's no objective basis for declaring one char build superior to another in terms of performance. A leader is good at leading people but sucks at bashing their skulls in, with a fighter it's the other way around. Yeah, a leader character is well suited to your personal style of play. Good for you, but you have no business pretending that it's the best one of all. It's best for that particular task that you've set up for yourself. By telling us that your build is superior you're basically telling us that your playstyle is superior. Screw that.

 

[alh_p]

I always found I've done rather well (& had a great time) with prediominantly combat skills and a smattering of health & training skills.

My point is that you can only do very well in the game picking non-combat skills. What are you even supposed to do with a character focused entirely on combat skills? Fight bandits forever? Go town to town and participate in tournaments? I just don't get it. If you want to siege castles, you'll have to rely entirely on other lords to help you out. Which I suppose isn't entirely a terrible thing, but I imagine it gets repetitive really quick.

In some ways, M&B could almost be called a Feudal simulation game. As you've played it through at least once now you'll know you can't really do much on your own.

Fiefs: villages, castles & towns, are only awarded by a King and can (almost) only be retained if you remain a loyal subject of the King. Equally, you cannot really expect to capture a castle alone unless you have a huge army. Your character really has to be aligned with a kingdom in order to do anything major.

This means that for most of the game you are subject to the whim of your King/Khan, for better or worse.

Castles are not meant to be captured by a 50 odd men. In this way M&B is quite accurate. You need more troops, so you need more Lords ot follow you with their war parties.

To get a lord to follow you you need one of two things: to be the kingdom's Marshall, or to have a sufficiently high relationship with a lord to convince him to follow you. It's pretty realistic in that way.

Personally I only stay independant for up to 15 levels, by which point I sign a mercenary contract with some kingdom or other. After that I have enough renown to be recognised & granted a fief -tying me to a faction. Once in a faction as a feudal lord, you can work up to Marshal by sucking up to the King/Khan 7 building your renown.   

 

[pesja]

Why do you have to run around fighting bandits if you dont focus on being a leader? until recently i always got as much points in fighting stats as possible.. All you need to take on any army in the game is 80 - 100 swadian knigts. You dont need much leading skills to maintan that band.

But ive discovered that its more fun to focus on social skills, since it makes mainting the army which is crap ass boring more easy and it makes fighting harder which is fun=)

 

[mouthnhoof]

I usually find it fun to maintain a small elite band. It takes only a little investment in leadership, but high tactics score is very useful for this style since you will be outnumbered most of the time. It also means that you will have to get your hands dirty and do some butchering yourself.

This time, I going for a merciless-mercenary band. I employ tavern mercs and captured bandits almost exclusively, plus the less ¨nice¨ companions.

 

[ttsec]

It may be unbalanced, but it's realistic.

In real life, the people need a leader.

 

[Kamamura]

In some ways, M&B could almost be called a Feudal simulation game.

Almost. Pity that the non-combat feudal features are sorely unfinished.

 

[Sicnarf]

Leader Pros and Cons:
+ Can win battles with minimal effort
+ Can skirmish opposing Lords with ease
+ Can siege castles without the help of other lords
+ Can consistently loot and plunder enemy villages for large amounts of free money and supplies without villagers putting up a fight
+ Doesn't have to worry about bandits and sea raiders
+ Doesn't have to manually fight every battle
+ INT+CHA base gives you an unfair amount of extra skill points.
- Can have a rough time at the start of the game.
- You'll be spending a lot of your time training your men through repetitive battles and "Waiting".

Combat character pro's and cons:
+ Can kill large amounts of enemies solo for easy renown.
+ Can breeze through tournamanets due to being a bad ass.
+ Can siege castles and towns without the help of other lords, 80 men and you is all it takes to take a town with 300 defenders in one attack if you don't mess up.
+ Doesn't have to worry about bandits and sea raiders.
+ Has it easy at the start of the game.
+ Can become an archery god and mow down large quantities enemies covering the ramp.
+ If you like killing your going to love this build at level 33 my fighter character has personally killed/knocked out 4513 enemies and I'm sure other people have even more kills.
- Costs a fortune to get the best armour and weapons you need to be on the front line so much
- You spend alot of time grinding out 1000+ renown for that large army
- Most of your companions end up as skill mules
- Some days you just don't feel like running down bandits for experience

Both builds have their advantages and disadvantages but I think it just depends on preference,
The leader character leans more towards RTS players and the combat character leans more towards FPS players. I get more of a thrill mowing down 12-15 enemies with my bow before they even reach my troops than watching my troops clobber them.

 

[allthesedamnnamesaretaken]

Leader Characters don't level as fast as fighters since they can't kill nearly as fast. Fighting skills should be pumped until you are a decent battlefield presense, then you can pump int/cha. Otherwise it's slow going relying on couching for experience. My fighter can cut the heads off of 4-5 enemies in the time you need to couch one and turn around and try another.

 

[Varric]

you forgot about the very large amount of experience you get that you share when you win large battles

 

[Acanthoid]

What are you even supposed to do with a character focused entirely on combat skills? Fight bandits forever? Go town to town and participate in tournaments? I just don't get it. If you want to siege castles, you'll have to rely entirely on other lords to help you out. Which I suppose isn't entirely a terrible thing, but I imagine it gets repetitive really quick.

My character is level 28, and my 8 companions are level 17-18. Im a footman melee -build and all my companions are such also. 154 days passed so far, getting experience to companions takes time. Everyone is now very well equipped and my maximum troop number is 102 although my charisma is 6 and leadership 2 (renown 1915). Haven't joined any factions yet, but nothing prevents me recruiting those 90 troops to my party and go castle cliffing. I've devided all the necessary skills with my companions and me and we all have training 4-6. I've noticed on my earlier games that i don't need high charisma nor leadership.

And anyway, bandits give nice money and experience. If coordinated well, we can kill about 40-50 sea raiders without casulties. And even then I only kill about 10 of them, companions get the rest.

 

[Acanthoid]

you forgot about the very large amount of experience you get that you share when you win large battles

Yar, but you miss all the personal exps from your own kills.

 

[Tzsak]

Since I play the game to fight nowadays I tend to just boost my int/cha skills to max and put combat skills/stats down to the minimum at the start of the game with import/export. Far more fun~

 

[allthesedamnnamesaretaken]

you forgot about the very large amount of experience you get that you share when you win large battles

It's nowhere near as large as the experience you get for killing 10-20+ enemies every battle. That's a lot of missed experience. Especially at high 30+ levels, not having combat skills means it takes you forever to gain levels.