Is it me or are looters a bit too strong?

[Dionaea]

So we all remember that the main way to gain experience and money was to farm looters (especially in warband it was useful to focus on looters until you could take on mountain bandits and farm those so you could move on to sea raiders and finally get free good equipment and xp and cash) in fact I could take on parties of 30+ sea raiders eventually with just me and 10 companions and gain glorious amounts of xp

But I have had to reload and restart several campaigns now because I'm constantly getting my ass handed to me, and I need to fight because the party wage of just me, 2 heroes, a forrest bandit and a hill man is 67 per day and I have no source of income, but in battle I constantly miss with my Lance and sword and the looters always hit me and my horse with something, and eventually Looters just pelt you and your men with rocks and that's the end of it after a while you are beaten, in Warband I used to solo 30 looters in the early game with just a horse, shield and lance. In bannerlord I can barely take on 20 looters even when I bring help and when everything is on the easiest settings


/rant

 

[archaicwarrior]

Looter groups seem to be larger in number, this is good .. they are slower, I can catch them.

Same old looter tactics though, run at you, throw rocks, run away.

 

[Slithy]

You may want to hold off on hiring heroes till you have a bit more income. Once you have 3-4 imperial infantry you should be able to take on groups of <10 without too much trouble.

I will say that trying to take on more than 5 as someone solo on foot is pretty challenging on realistic.

Oh and be sure to swap out your horse early for something faster because the default one sucks.

 

[stevehoos]

I don't think they are overpowered really, it's that good armor does not protect you from their stones.

 

[khuzait haircut]

Armor does pretty much nothing in this game.

 

[Delinard]

 

[Kipsta]

They have very short weapons which means super fast swing speed. It will catch you off-guard unless you can run faster than them then it's easy enough to kill them by the usual runaway and swoop in for a strike strategy.

 

[Androme1]

The problem is that armor is virtually useless.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

I'm afraid it's just you.

Looter/bandits are easily solo'd if you know what you're doing on max difficulty and I don't claim to be anything special at the game.

By far the easiest farming method is horse archery, but I can easily destroy groups on foot with a 2H weapon as well.

 

[Davic]

I think one of the issues is that while in Warband it was better to have 5 high-tier units than 10 low-tier units, it's the opposite in Bannerlord. The AI is much more aggressive and efficient so that it doesn't really matter if a unit has better armor and weapons and higher skills, if it's outnumbered they're going to get mobbed and stunlocked regardless. Rather than getting any companions right at that start (which don't really seem as essential compared to Warband), I recommend just gathering recruits and attacking looter parties at similar sizes or below yours, at least until you can field some ranged.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

First thing I do in a new game is march into nearest store and sell my sword, civilian sword and civilian gear, and buy 2 stacks of tourney arrows and a real horse. Now I am death on a horse an no amount of looters can stop me. Even if there were 100 I would just retreat when my arrows where out and attack again. Forest bandits...... different story (for now), but anything else will be knocked out and joining me soon, even steppe raiders.

Now of course your baby troops, well don't let them fight unless they're close in numbers. 2 ways to do this, 1 just ride behind looters and break them up so not all reach your recruits at once. Or 2, tell everyone to retreat and kill some of them, then retreat, then have recruit fight a safe amount.

I think the amount or stones they have is annoying. It feels like they never run out. They do, but it feels like they always got 1 more.

 

[Apocal]

So we all remember that the main way to gain experience and money was to farm looters (especially in warband it was useful to focus on looters until you could take on mountain bandits and farm those so you could move on to sea raiders and finally get free good equipment and xp and cash) in fact I could take on parties of 30+ sea raiders eventually with just me and 10 companions and gain glorious amounts of xp

But I have had to reload and restart several campaigns now because I'm constantly getting my ass handed to me, and I need to fight because the party wage of just me, 2 heroes, a forrest bandit and a hill man is 67 per day and I have no source of income, but in battle I constantly miss with my Lance and sword and the looters always hit me and my horse with something, and eventually Looters just pelt you and your men with rocks and that's the end of it after a while you are beaten, in Warband I used to solo 30 looters in the early game with just a horse, shield and lance. In bannerlord I can barely take on 20 looters even when I bring help and when everything is on the easiest settings


/rant

This is just you.

 

[D0c1]

Armor does pretty much nothing in this game.

i agree with this answer. in warband, one could be in a sea of looters/entry level units and the damage notifications would be something like
received 0 damage
received 0 damage
received 0 damage
received 1 damage
received 0 damage
received 1 damage
received 0 damage
received 1 damage
received 0 damage

 

[stevehoos]

i agree with this answer. in warband, one could be in a sea of looters/entry level units and the damage notifications would be something like
received 0 damage
received 0 damage
received 0 damage
received 1 damage
received 0 damage
received 1 damage
received 0 damage
received 1 damage
received 0 damage

I like that they went away from this, it think it was a bit too easy once you got top gear, but I still think armor needs to be adjusted. High tier units die too easily when engaging looter units with crude weapons and no armor. Fighting on foot is not as fun because all it takes is three or four hits from a looter and you are down even with good gear.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Around about the time you get good armour, the game should be shifting focus to the survivability of your army and faction, not just you. Still having to worry about getting oneshotted when you're commanding big armies and have no individual impact on the battle is just silly.

 

[Dionaea]

I'm afraid it's just you.

Looter/bandits are easily solo'd if you know what you're doing on max difficulty and I don't claim to be anything special at the game.

By far the easiest farming method is horse archery, but I can easily destroy groups on foot with a 2H weapon as well.

I only use horse archery if I create character that would use that. Bohemund de Guiscard is not a horse archer type of character, but a lance and mace/sword wielding knight

 

[a_ver_est]

They are overpower for sure, a looter shouldn't be able to do damage to a trained/equipped soldier unless they overwhelm them with numbers, but right now you get some high tier troops killed really often.

IMHO losing a tier3 or better vs looters shuld be a really rare an occasional event. I feel, like others, that the main problem is the poor protection of armor against projectiles (rocks)... they are several topics about it.

 

[rektasaurus]

If you insisted on using a lance and mace I think your only option is to peel aggro away while staying out of range of their slings so that your troops have a shot at killing them piecemeal. I too prefer the horse archer method but splitting looters apart, while very kitey, isn’t terribly challenging even with zero armor and realistic settings. Having only melee just makes the process take longer.

Forest bandits are legit beast.

 

[Apocal]

Around about the time you get good armour, the game should be shifting focus to the survivability of your army and faction, not just you. Still having to worry about getting oneshotted when you're commanding big armies and have no individual impact on the battle is just silly.

Once you're wearing T6 armor, the only things that one-shot from full health is a top-tier javelin or a good blow from a two-handed polearm.

It is pretty infruiating to get KOed by those, but the overwhelming majority of the time, the root cause is personal hubris: there is nothing demanding I dive into a crowd of imperial infantry that is thick with menavs or play tag with Haramis. Losing that aspect -- of there being some weapons on the field that can viably threaten you, even in max armor -- is detrimental to the game.

 

[Sidhwen_Khorest]

Still having to worry about getting oneshotted when you're commanding big armies and have no individual impact on the battle is just silly.

Well to be fair commanders don't usually charge at the front line with their men, at least not commanders that live for a long time