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

[quietresolve]

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.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

If you ask me, the whole skills and perks system feels poorly conceived and needs to be reworked entirely

 

[quietresolve]

If you ask me, the whole skills and perks system feels poorly conceived and needs to be reworked entirely

I agree. Current skill tree is like a 40 out of 100

 

[black_bulldog]

If you ask me, the whole skills and perks system feels poorly conceived and needs to be reworked entirely

Agreed perks like "x gives a 4% increase in damage" or "y gives a 3% increase in speed" are very underwhelming and leave players feeling "why do I even care about this perk?"
It's ok to give percentage increases but they need to feel significant. If we're getting perks every 25 points in skill then they need to be more impactful.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

Agreed, it needs a rethink.

 

[Elrath]

I hope that they are just placeholders, they seem like they are made to fill space with zero thinking, one more example: second perk in 2 handed tree is "Reduced garrison wages by 5%"

 

[Princeps Senatus]

I like skills and perks but the skills and perks should make sense to the skill you're training. I am confused by sword-fighting giving me a health bonus.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Yeah and also it's very very much not like skyrim's system once you look at it more closely. The way they described in during development sounded like a TES type system but what we've got is a weird, restrictive MMO "punish you for not min/max, punish you for overly min/max" set up.

Although it looks like you're encouraged to do a bit of everything, really each level drops your learning rate for all skills, so if you don't focus on important skills you end up in a situation where everything levels very slowly but you haven't achieved anything.

This is kinda negated by your base character being really good at using any weapon and so many support skills being SO COMPLETELY WEAK that you can ignore them, but then that kinda ruined char building in general.

So yeah it needs either a whole new system or a fat upgrade to most perks and especially support skill effects.

 

[Havada]

Majority of perks is bad. I agree on that. I think that TW should make a thread where everyone can post their suggestions for the perks. I'm sure that many great ideas would come up.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

Most of the perks don't make much sense or feel out of place in their skill line. I'm guessing the current skill tree is a placeholder, I hope anyway.

 

[Teaplz]

Yeah, I agree with much of this. A lot of the talents are boring, and some are placed in strange places. Some stat fillers are fine, imo. In the hope of the devs reading this, what talents do you like, tho? Here are some of my favs

Marsh, plain, forest hunter: + 0.5 foodin said area
I fits thematically, and I like a non-combat bonus in a weapon skill

Bone Bolts: Killing someone with a bot reduces the enemies morale by 1.
Haven't played with it yet, but really looking forward to slaughtering their ranks and flattening their morale!

 

[Lord Irontoe]

Yeah, I agree with much of this. A lot of the talents are boring, and some are placed in strange places. Some stat fillers are fine, imo. In the hope of the devs reading this, what talents do you like, tho? Here are some of my favs

Marsh, plain, forest hunter: + 0.5 foodin said area
I fits thematically, and I like a non-combat bonus in a weapon skill

Bone Bolts: Killing someone with a bot reduces the enemies morale by 1.
Haven't played with it yet, but really looking forward to slaughtering their ranks and flattening their morale!

Funny, I'd place all those food perks you mentioned in the 'useless' pile.

A perk that's interesting to me something like Pushback in the Polearm tree that lets you push someone back when they block with their spear. Or the perks that let you use any bow or crossbow on horseback, if they actually worked. Or Ranger in the Bow tree that increases accuracy while moving. Basically, anything that gives you some extra ability that's related to the skill

 

[black_bulldog]

Funny, I'd place all those food perks you mentioned in the 'useless' pile.

A perk that's interesting to me something like Pushback in the Polearm tree that lets you push someone back when they block with their spear. Or the perks that let you use any bow or crossbow on horseback, if they actually worked. Or Ranger in the Bow tree that increases accuracy while moving. Basically, anything that gives you some extra ability that's related to the skill

Yeah those perks I find interesting. I'd love to see a perk in 2 handers that gives you a chance to block arrows or stop a charging horse or mabye troops within x distance will not break, something besides +x% to damage or speed or even worse increase in garrison capacity or decrease in wages. I'm not sure wtf that has to do with using a 2 hander?

 

[giltirn]

Agreed. Boring +% modifiers should come naturally as a skill is progressed, but perks should offer something distinct and interesting.

 

[R4MPZY]

I agree, while i like the new system of how to level and the perks, they dont feel really thought out of except for a few. Like for one example in the engineer tree i would've really expected to find a "master engineer" one as the last perk where you instantly have 1 or 2 ranged siege engines of your choice, because when you put that much effort into maxing a perk, it should feel rewarding.

 

[Pancakelord333]

1. I feel like they could slice the last digit off the skill values and it'd be exactly the same
   • i.e. progression from level 1 - 300 adds nothing versus progression from 1 - 30, even if the relative XP steps were adjusted accordingly.
     • (i.e. there is no value gained from that additional granularity you're effectively going level 1 - 30 already, but the extra 0 acts like a decimal, it just obfuscates the levelling system needlessly)
       • [level 233 becomes level 23.3 or just level 23 with an XP% progress bar to level 24],
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).
3. As others have said the perks need a radical re-think with some weird choices in some trees. I'd go a step further, and inter-weave the 6 weapons trees with athletics:
   • move all weapon damage (both ranged and melee) perks & passives to the athletics line - as a proxy for your physical fitness, you can be a master with a sword, but if you're emaciated, you are not cleaving someone's arm off in a single swing.
   • Whilst i'd tie things like swing speed, draw speed, knock speed(bows), block speed and maybe a low-power critical/weakspot multiplier to each respective weapon line (but not damage) as those could concievabley be seen as more related to skill and muscle memory (you learn to guide a sword into an enemy's weak point through practice in the case of weak point crit multipliers).
   • This would make athletics essential - even for riding-based characters
     • currently athletics is only good for making you run a bit faster
     • so it can totally be ignored if you're gonna couch lance or pole-arm from horseback, or just never dismount as a strategy
     • but fighting and martial arts of all kinds rely on you being in peak physical form, especially mounted combat which can exert car-crash-like forces on the body in some cases.
4. Whilst not skill related, per se, I'd give each skill tree special perk choices that vary with your "race" to really drive home the differences between the factions.
   • e.g. Vlandians might get more powerful alternative perk choices in riding and polearms (lances)
   • Whilst Azerai might get alternative riding choices that let their mounts passively carry more weight/run faster on sand or stewardship choices that let their troops move faster at night/ in the desert (as it's cooler at night, reducing heat exhaustion on men on foot, some societies did this IRL) or whatever.

I'm also of the opinion that perks should be pool-selected. (rather than them being "serially unlocked" as they currently are)

• e.g lets say you can level skills up from 1-10 (for simplicity as an example),
• so for every new level in a skill line, you get to pick one new perk from a list for that skill and you could have 10 perks in all for each skill.
  • Therefore, you don't need to wait till level 10 in roguery to unlock converting bandits to normal troops (disciplinarian?).
  • You could pick it from the roguery perk list at level 2 in roguery if you wanted, but the trade-off is you couldn't pick something else
  • (i.e. there is an opportunity cost but you can more quickly tailor and specialise your build - this is also how several CRPGs worked).

 

[Bob Gnarly]

Yeah those perks I find interesting. I'd love to see a perk in 2 handers that gives you a chance to block arrows or stop a charging horse or mabye troops within x distance will not break, something besides +x% to damage or speed or even worse increase in garrison capacity or decrease in wages. I'm not sure wtf that has to do with using a 2 hander?

Well it has the Deflect Arrow perk which gives you a chance to deflect, so you're good there.

There's also Horse Slaughter which is a 20% boost to horse damage, I guess it's possible to kill a horse in a single blow with this.

Unfortunately these's no morale boost for nearby troops, but there's Eviscerator which causes 30% more morale loss to the enemy.

Two handed is probably one of the better trees currently now that I look at it.

 

[Mountainhorse]

Most of them don't even work so I hope they are all placeholders.

 

[black_bulldog]

Well it has the Deflect Arrow perk which gives you a chance to deflect, so you're good there.

There's also Horse Slaughter which is a 20% boost to horse damage, I guess it's possible to kill a horse in a single blow with this.

Unfortunately these's no morale boost for nearby troops, but there's Eviscerator which causes 30% more morale loss to the enemy.

Two handed is probably one of the better trees currently now that I look at it.

I thought I looked at those perks better good to know at least there are a few things. I don't really see the morale loss to be that great except in big battles because having to chase down fleeing troops is a pain in the a$$.

 

[Iberian Wolf]

The move from Warband skill system to this one was a very good move in the right direction. However, it needs to be majorly improved, but the potential is there.
In general, the perks are alright. A lot of them are really cool (Concealed blade/Without Honor/Vandal/Bait); the ones with a % bonus might not be thrilling but it's inevitable to have some passive skills; and a few of them will be probably a waste of a perk (Power kick/Extra Arrows). But my gripes with it are:

1) The forced choices upon unwanted perks:

Let's say I wanna roleplay a knight who can't hit the side of a barn with a javelin because he's shortsighted, so he'll focus on other skills, like Riding. Well, turns out his second Riding perks are either "Extra arrows" or "Extra javelins". Therefore, apart from being forced to choose one of the perks, both will be useless for him. I think the system would be better if the perks wouldn't be:

a) a mandatory choice, allowing you to skip both and choose another perk down the line that is better suited to your build(as long as you reach the skill threshold)
b) mutually exclusive (e.g. having one perk for extra javelins and another for arrows perhaps would catch a horse archer's fancy)

We'd still keep the total number of perks per skill tree (11), and the thresholds would still apply.
And naturally, some perks could still be part of a branch requiring pre-requisites.

2)Attributes/Skills/Perks names are at times very unimaginative and poorly chosen:

I know that is a bit of personal preference, but an effort should be made in order to:

a) standardise nomenclature: e.g.Why "Steward" instead of "Stewardship"?

b) avoid misleading names: I for one think that choosing "Vigour" over "Strength" wasn't the best choice because the former is more related to Endurance/Resistance/Tirelessness. Might even confuse some new players.

I've got a problem with "Control" as well. It says it "represents the ability to use strength without sacrificing precision". While it makes sense in Throwing and Bow, it doesn't in Crossbow. Once you cock your bolt, you just need to aim. So I think "Accuracy" or "Precision" are more adequate.

It's even a cool name for a perk...but "Bury the Hatchet" increases 10% axe damage? Should be a 10% bonus to make peace deal instead, since that is the meaning of the idiom!

There are many names that are just bland(all those with I/II), and some of the perk icons are not really clear with strange drawings...also, the numbers are VERY tiny! Regardless, I wanna believe that this will be eventually revamped.