Is the dev aware of that the skill tree needs to be more interesting in the final release?

[Bramborough]

I seem to have a different take on this than most.

I think a lot of the perks were conceived not with the player character in mind, but rather the companions. As one example, all the "Governor" perks are categorically inapplicable for the player, as no one is just going to park their toon in a castle forever, no matter how good the perks are. But a companion might be groomed to prioritize some Governor perks, and that might become useful (assuming all the perks actually work eventually).

I don't think the perks are arranged well, though. At each level, there ought to be a choice between a decent player perk and a conceivably-decent companion perk. Don't make me choose between two irrelevant "Governor" perks for myself. Likewise, don't force a meaningless "Clan Leader" perk choice for a companion. Any point where there's no choice, just unlocks one perk, it needs to be something that could conceivably be useful for either a player or companion ("Personal" or "party member" perks that would presumably be active regardless of the character/companion's party/clan role).

It's well known that many of the perks don't even work yet, regardless of how good/bad they look. Once most or all of them are implemented and working as intended, I suspect that we'll discover some of them are more powerful than they first appear if/when shared among several companions in a party. For example, a "+2 party size" perk is underwhelming viewed individually...but if several companions all have one, well, that becomes more significant.

That all said, yeah, some of the perks (like the Bow-tree food ones) ARE just junk. That perk group might actually have been moderately useful if inventory weight/space and food scarcity in some areas were modeled somewhat closer to Warband. And perhaps these perks were first thought up with that mindset in place. But with effectively-unlimited cargo capacity provided by readily-available mules/etc (even in earliest game, I've never been inventory-constrained...didn't even look at the number), it has become meaningless.

My basic point is that, yeah, there's some cases where some perks just plain need to be removed/replaced, and there definitely needs to be a lot of work done in arranging the trees better. BUT...the overall concept of the perk system might (or might not) be closer to the mark than appears right now, and that may (or may not) become better apparent once more of these perks become actually functional.

 

[Eggs Benedict]

At first I'm quite excited that M&B2 is adapting the Skyrim's skill leveling system. But after a closer look I found out that most of the skill perks were not very interesting - some of them were merely just plainly adding numbers(such as companion count) while others are totally irrelevant (adding food for the archery skill? Really?)

So I think most of the skill trees were so bad that it is a really major issue or setback for the current game. I'm not sure if the dev is aware of this but please consider

1. the perks need to be interesting, to unlock new playstyles to encourage players to level them. I don't want to level my riding to 175 for a "party limit +5" or level my rogue for a "faster escape time after being captured". Having trouble chasing down steppe bandit? What about a Tactic perk that allows you to lure the bandit into you, or maybe several groups at a time so that I will have the satisfaction of fighting 200 looters at the same time at the late game. These are the perks that actually "encourage players to level into"

2. they need to keep the roleplaying/user experience in mind. For example there is a rogue talent that allows you to recruite bandit at level 225. Why the hell do I need this perk if I'm already that late into the game? If I want to role-play a bandit warlord, I need the ability to recruit bandit from the rogue skill tree to be moved from level 225 to level 25, and maybe add a persuasion check that I could start having bandits joining my army at the very beginning.

I think the perks need an overhaul. I will post y a couple of weeks my testings and experiences on Bannerlord.

 

[Ragemaster9999]

I seem to have a different take on this than most.

I think a lot of the perks were conceived not with the player character in mind, but rather the companions. As one example, all the "Governor" perks are categorically inapplicable for the player, as no one is just going to park their toon in a castle forever, no matter how good the perks are. But a companion might be groomed to prioritize some Governor perks, and that might become useful (assuming all the perks actually work eventually).

Except for the fact that stewardship increases party size which makes it immensely important for the player and any party leaders they make. Why isn't leadership the skill that grows your party size? Leadership increases morale and garrison size. These two passive bonus need to be swapped.

 

[Bramborough]

Except for the fact that stewardship increases party size which makes it immensely important for the player and any party leaders they make. Why isn't leadership the skill that grows your party size? Leadership increases morale and garrison size. These two passive bonus need to be swapped.

Totally agree. Party size ought to go with Leadership, Garrison size with Steward. No argument from me.

As an aside, "Max Garrison Size" right now seems a completely theoretical number that we can't even get remotely approach in practice, because of the whole prosperity-vs-food economy mess. But that's a completely separate can of worms outside the scope of this thread.

 

[Ragemaster9999]

Totally agree. Party size ought to go with Leadership, Garrison size with Steward. No argument from me.

As an aside, "Max Garrison Size" right now seems a completely theoretical number that we can't even get remotely approach in practice, because of the whole prosperity-vs-food economy mess. But that's a completely separate can of worms outside the scope of this thread.

In the beta branch my AI party companions are gaining stewardship when they go around recruiting INSTEAD of leadership like when the player does it. This is probably a bug iv reported both on the bug forums.

 

[Descan]

I agree with the comments that passive buffs like +5% health or what-have-you should come simply from having X levels in that skill, rather than the perks. The perks should be... Well, perks. Bonuses, features, new stuff. Not just reiterations on what you already have, but additions to your repertoire; things that can change up how you use that skill or open up entire new mechanics for the later perks.

I'm also on board with that weapon *strength* should be tied to Athletics (although that may turn a near-useless niche skill into an Essential Skill and thereby cut down a little on character variety, it does make sense thematically, and I'm not sure what else athletics can apply to besides that. Admittedly there is some thematic overlap with Strength/Vigour.) and weapon *ability* should be tied to the individual weapon skill - speed and precision/accuracy/crit chance. Same comment mentioned pooling perks instead of a linear thing, and I agree to an extent; I think some (theoretical, I can't think of any in the I-Hope-Are-Placeholders currently that this applies to) powerful perks should be locked to later, so you can't just dump enough to get one unlock and then ignore it entirely for that One Powerful Perk. But the perks should be pooled into tiers, maybe 2 to 4 different pools with the more "That's Neat" perks in the first tier and the more "That's a game changer" perks in the later tiers.

And definitely leadership should be something that increases party size, rather than stewardship. Not only is that how it was in Warband, but it makes intuitive sense that the skill involved in leading more men should be Leadership.

 

[kekkuli5]

Yeah man, the whole XP and skill system is very questionable. I for one don't really like it. It's like they are forcing people to commit on certain skills while at the same time it's required to grind skills than you don't want to, to actually gain levels. It's like skyrim but even worse.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

2. I'm not a fan of how much of an impact the weapon passives (.e.g.+X% 1h damage etc) have on you at high levels - by screwing with the console to get everything levelled up high (as I'm too lazy to grind to level 250 to check) you can be delivering 30-50% extra damage from weapons perks/skill passives which is a lot - In one test saw a swing of 138dmg on someone's head in the arena with a 2h axe had 43 of it's damage coming from my 2h passives or roughly a 3rd.

• though this is an easy fix, just reduce the passive effects,
• but then if passives are reduced you have to ask why they even exist in the first place? What do they add to the game/what problem do they solve?
  • IMO the whole passive effects side of the skill tree feels very "MMOish", and not in a good way, they needlessly over-inflate stats (especially when things die so easily as-is, as enemies never scale over time in bannerlord, you can fight a catephract on day one and itll be just the same as a catephract 10 years in to a game [which is good]. unlike in RPGs where you'd fight an "Uber catephract" with a million HP in endgame or whatever as they need to account for quadratic player-power/dps-increases)
    • As someone whose played a lot of Elder scrolls online, I can see in Bannerlord's current passive skill system, the same failings as ESO's Champion point system
    • (For people reading this that have not played ESO: the Champion point tree is a passive tree you slowly grind out after hitting the max level, it's mostly there to help with MMO player retention/long-term sense of progression after levelling/gearing is over).

I disagree. The passive bonuses are pretty low and the perks don't add much. In Warband, every 100 proficiency points translated to around 15% damage bonus and you could expect to get up to around 400 in your main weapons. On top of that you had Power Strike which granted 8% damage per point to melee attacks, Power Throw which granted 10% per point for throwing weapons, and Power Draw, which granted a whopping 14% bow damage bonus per point. That's what separated the Looters and Forest Bandits from the Swadian Knights and Vaegir Marksmen. They completely flattened the power curve in this game which is why Looters, the throwaway starting enemy from Warband, can still be a pain in the ass to a band of top tier elites.