Lets have an actual, civil, class balance discussion.

[Ikea Knight]

wat did i just read

The opinion of someone that talks about Deathmatch and Captain. It is not necessarily wrong but it just doesn't seem true when looking at Skirmish.
To actually bring this thread back to topic: one weakness of the current class system is that everybody can do everything. Infantry can mount, Archers can use throwing weapons and cavalry can use bows.
The reason why this is problematic is that heavy archers can be all around good units.
The Khans guard with the Glaeve is a strong pick for melee, a good archer and with a horse als a good light cavalry. On factions without dedicated heavy infantry I ended up picking heavy archers as they are just alrounders. One class that can be used for every role defeats the purpose of classes.

 

[origomar]

The opinion of someone that talks about Deathmatch and Captain. It is not necessarily wrong but it just doesn't seem true when looking at Skirmish.
To actually bring this thread back to topic: one weakness of the current class system is that everybody can do everything. Infantry can mount, Archers can use throwing weapons and cavalry can use bows.
The reason why this is problematic is that heavy archers can be all around good units.
The Khans guard with the Glaeve is a strong pick for melee, a good archer and with a horse als a good light cavalry. On factions without dedicated heavy infantry I ended up picking heavy archers as they are just alrounders. One class that can be used for every role defeats the purpose of classes.

another weakness is there are 4 different game modes at the moment and as far as i am aware there are no differences between the classes for each of them. so you can rack up the kills doing one thing in one game mode, and probably be more efficient doing something else in another but any changes to the classes will affect all the game modes.

 

[Marquis de Montalban]

@Tork

Do you happen to have a thread or post somewhere where you have the empirical data you routinely harken back to as necessary before any adjustments to the game should be made? I'm noticing a theme in your posts, which has been a thing even back in the test section prior to early release, where you routinely play the devil's advocate on arguments people are advancing to change various aspects of the game. I have no issue if you want to be contrarian simply to provide context to the conversations/arguments being made, but I'm curious if you recognize the hypocrisy in stating that people can't call for changes based on imbalances because no empirical data exists that proves said issues are unbalanced.
The reciprocal point is that there are also no empirical tests that prove a single aspect of the game IS balanced. All we have to go on, and all we have gone on, is the word of the TW staff, the great majority of whom are focused towards developing the SP aspect.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

1. Two handed weapons across the board are overpowered. they swing too fast for doing more damage and having longer reach than one handed weapons.
2. throwing spears are ****ing useless.
3. crossbows are inferior to bows in almost all ways
4. bows do too little damage on headshots.
5. horses are fine in captains mode because of lack of unit size, not fine in deathmatch but I'm not sure if deathmatch is even attempting to be balanced.


Overall : Hitting someone in the head with a throwing spear or crossbow should always kill them. hitting them in the head with a bow should kill them almost every time. randomly swinging around two handed weapons is far too rewarding and hard to stop because almost all one handed weapons are ****ty.

Also I'm mostly talking about captains mode and deathmatch. I understand in skirmish it might be different with two handed weapons but for ranged weapons i don really see how.

I agree about headshots. In the 1.1.0 Beta (which nobody is playing MP on right now) they buffed headshots. Throwing spears are amazing right now, and arguably an infs best tool to take down cav. Captain mode cav is definitely meh, but can be really good. Just takes a smarter captain tha an f1f3 inf player.

 

[RCC_God]

I agree about headshots. In the 1.1.0 Beta (which nobody is playing MP on right now) they buffed headshots. Throwing spears are amazing right now, and arguably an infs best tool to take down cav. Captain mode cav is definitely meh, but can be really good. Just takes a smarter captain tha an f1f3 inf player.

I feel attacked personally as an f1 f3 player

 

[Caps]

pressing f1 f3 is most of the times the best option

 

[TheBard]

pressing f1 f3 is most of the times the best option

The Swadia Experience back then.

 

[Alyss]

pressing f1 f3 is most of the times the best option

Well yes since the AI wasn’t really improved like they claimed. The only good change is formation and horse archers

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

Well yes since the AI wasn’t really improved like they claimed. The only good change is formation and horse archers

For what its worth I think the improved bots are the biggest leap forward from Warband to Bannerlord. Cav AI struggles in captain but that is largely because its AI is coded to cycle charge in an open field rather than finding a way to kill a tightly packed ball of inf in the corner of a city map. Honest to God I have struggled more consistently against the AI in singleplayer than many situations against players in multiplayer.

 

[origomar]

I agree about headshots. In the 1.1.0 Beta (which nobody is playing MP on right now) they buffed headshots. Throwing spears are amazing right now, and arguably an infs best tool to take down cav. Captain mode cav is definitely meh, but can be really good. Just takes a smarter captain tha an f1f3 inf player.

typically when I hit people with a throwing spear it does about 40 damage, which seems extremely low to me. especially when throwing axes seem to do double that damage, sometimes one-shotting people. I don't think I've ever one-shot someone with a spear to the neck/face unless it was something like the pila, but I have definitely done that with throwing axes.

Not really a balance thing, but also technically if a pile(pilum) hits a shield, that shield would be worthless but right now all throwing weapons hitting shields don't really do that much when compared to real-life throwing spears. I don't really expect full realism, but at least something that's realistic relative to the other things that are in the game.

 

[RoyalEagle]

typically when I hit people with a throwing spear it does about 40 damage, which seems extremely low to me. especially when throwing axes seem to do double that damage, sometimes one-shotting people. I don't think I've ever one-shot someone with a spear to the neck/face unless it was something like the pila, but I have definitely done that with throwing axes.

Not really a balance thing, but also technically if a pile(pilum) hits a shield, that shield would be worthless but right now all throwing weapons hitting shields don't really do that much when compared to real-life throwing spears. I don't really expect full realism, but at least something that's realistic relative to the other things that are in the game.

years ago i played one warband mp mode with barbarians and romans, there was pilas that one shot everyone and destroys shields with two hits
so it's not a big problem, because of modding abilities of game

 

[Caps]

typically when I hit people with a throwing spear it does about 40 damage, which seems extremely low to me. especially when throwing axes seem to do double that damage, sometimes one-shotting people. I don't think I've ever one-shot someone with a spear to the neck/face unless it was something like the pila, but I have definitely done that with throwing axes.

Not really a balance thing, but also technically if a pile(pilum) hits a shield, that shield would be worthless but right now all throwing weapons hitting shields don't really do that much when compared to real-life throwing spears. I don't really expect full realism, but at least something that's realistic relative to the other things that are in the game.

you are in the wrong forum section for realistic stuff, shields are supposed to counter throwing stuff not the other way round...

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

The current empire strat of picking Palatine Guard and just ditching your bow to play mevdavlion inf is both sad and funny.

Playing in more matches with even teams against good players has reinforced the opinions I laid out in the OP

 

[Alyss]

Well matches with good players (ratparties) showed that Vlandia is op, Battania and Aserai are good, Sturgia is decent and Empire and Khuzait are meh

 

[Caps]

Well matches with good players (ratparties) showed that Vlandia is op, Battania and Aserai are good, Sturgia is decent and Empire and Khuzait are meh

That was only to be expected.
Vlandia has very strong cav with lances, their xbows are especially good against armored targets.
Empire and Khuzait dont have double spawns.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

Well matches with good players (ratparties) showed that Vlandia is op, Battania and Aserai are good, Sturgia is decent and Empire and Khuzait are meh

I didnt include Vlandia in the OP becuase when i wrote it they only appeared once every 200 matches. Here are my thoughts.

I think a lot of Vlandias success has to do with the way the game overall is balanced right now. Im talking about both combat mechanics and the maps in rotation. The current game balance relies on infantry just surviving while cav and archers get the kills. This plays extremely well into Vlandias hands because they have absurdly tanky inf along with Crossbows that can instadelete anyone. Cav in its current state is just a gamebreaker regardless of faction and really needs to be looked at. To my second point. Every map plays very well for a crossbow faction. They all have a very large amount of places that someone can safely reload without getting shot or being easily hit by a cav. I honestly believe that if you just plopped all the bannerlord factions on a map like Sandi, Vlandia would struggle compared to the other factions.

 

[Caps]

I didnt include Vlandia in the OP becuase when i wrote it they only appeared once every 200 matches. Here are my thoughts.

I think a lot of Vlandias success has to do with the way the game overall is balanced right now. Im talking about both combat mechanics and the maps in rotation. The current game balance relies on infantry just surviving while cav and archers get the kills. This plays extremely well into Vlandias hands because they have absurdly tanky inf along with Crossbows that can instadelete anyone. Cav in its current state is just a gamebreaker regardless of faction and really needs to be looked at. To my second point. Every map plays very well for a crossbow faction. They all have a very large amount of places that someone can safely reload without getting shot or being easily hit by a cav. I honestly believe that if you just plopped all the bannerlord factions on a map like Sandi, Vlandia would struggle compared to the other factions.

dont think that it would struggle, cav doesnt rly get stuck anymore

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

dont think that it would struggle, cav doesnt rly get stuck anymore

I was mainly referring to the the xbows. I think Vlandian cav is about equal to the other heavy cav and arguably worse than Aserai

 

[Caps]

I was mainly referring to the the xbows. I think Vlandian cav is about equal to the other heavy cav and arguably worse than Aserai

Aserai got **** shields and their infantry is just horrible. Khuzait dont have double spawn archers, which already takes them out. Sturgias cav is the least tanky one. This makes Vlandia the only faction with 3 heavy classes (that are all strong in the current meta) that are playable 2 times.

 

[Alyss]

Vlandian cav > Mameluk

Atm vlandia has the best cavs, second best inf (after battania), and arguably best ranged (battania archer is really good as well)