Leveling is cringe-worthy

[GitiUsir]

My solution, from a wannabe game designer for hire

- Remove learning rate decay with levels. If you want levels to measure experience don't mix them with skills.

- Attributes are assigned at character creation and they never change. The average Joe gets 5-6 in every attribute, sometimes a bit more or less. Very rare characters with above/below average stats. Attributes define skill caps. With low attribute low skills maximums, high stat -> high skill possible. Once or twice in a lifetime a character can increase one atribute by one point, representing years spent in the same activity, i.e. a scientist increasing intelligence or an atlhlete increasing endurance or vigor.

- Focus points are fixed at character creation. Say 18 focus points. Player can distribute them evenly or in different combinations: 5-5-5-1-1-1 4-4-4-2-2-2 3-3-3-3-3-3 ...
The beauty of focus points: they can be redistributed at any time, so the character focuses on those skills but can change them to focus on other skills.

- How to gain skill points: all skills are time based, if a character is focused on roguery, leadership and steward 5-5-5 he will gain skill points at rate * 5, if 1-1-1 at rate * 1 and so on. The rate is constant for every skill. It doesn't matter how many times you hit a looter with a club, it matters how many months you have been focused on learning your combat skills. Say 1 game-year at 5*rate is enough to get to 100 skill, 5 years at same rate to get to 200 skill.

Now you can specialize in a few skills or be a jack of all trades, your choice.

 

[TomaSkTemplar]

----

-I guess I wont respond further but things work different in different parts of the world. I dont like false saviors who are really only in to make their positions stronger. Next extinction event ? I dont live in fear of tomorrow or listen to any media for real, because they as they say it here, make a donkey out of a mosquito.(here it rhymes)

 

[Brandis.]

Please keep conversation related to this thread and Bannerlord. Off-topic political-natured posts will be removed.

 

[xdj1nn]

My solution, from a wannabe game designer for hire

- Remove learning rate decay with levels. If you want levels to measure experience don't mix them with skills.

- Attributes are assigned at character creation and they never change. The average Joe gets 5-6 in every attribute, sometimes a bit more or less. Very rare characters with above/below average stats. Attributes define skill caps. With low attribute low skills maximums, high stat -> high skill possible. Once or twice in a lifetime a character can increase one atribute by one point, representing years spent in the same activity, i.e. a scientist increasing intelligence or an atlhlete increasing endurance or vigor.

- Focus points are fixed at character creation. Say 18 focus points. Player can distribute them evenly or in different combinations: 5-5-5-1-1-1 4-4-4-2-2-2 3-3-3-3-3-3 ...
The beauty of focus points: they can be redistributed at any time, so the character focuses on those skills but can change them to focus on other skills.

- How to gain skill points: all skills are time based, if a character is focused on roguery, leadership and steward 5-5-5 he will gain skill points at rate * 5, if 1-1-1 at rate * 1 and so on. The rate is constant for every skill. It doesn't matter how many times you hit a looter with a club, it matters how many months you have been focused on learning your combat skills. Say 1 game-year at 5*rate is enough to get to 100 skill, 5 years at same rate to get to 200 skill.

Now you can specialize in a few skills or be a jack of all trades, your choice.

That's a very nice suggestion using their own system without limiting anything. I was think of easing the curve for soft cap and removing hard cap, increase global rates, reverse the speed decay for higher levels into speed buffs (rate wise) to make for a more linear XP gain (because there's a double slow down on higher level skills, one comes from the amount of XP required, the other comes from going into under 0.X rate speed for XP, which's really bad design imo)

At any rate, the way it is now forces you into a handful of skillsl, never able to specialize into anything properly, while at the same time forcing people to play a single style of combat, which is incredibly boring by late game (being forced to always use the same effing weapon, on Horse, because u know, you didn't spend the scarce focus points into Athletics, so you are basically a snail on foot). They should aim to diminish the repetitiviness, if only by making all combat skills possible to acquire... The other skills have similar effects intertwined, so you don't really need to combine them, but the worst part is that the skills under a governing attribute are not complementary, so if you spend too much on Control, for instance, you are in-utilizing potential due to the fact that you will never use crossbows if your spec is Archer, or in Thrown... Idk, it's really awkwardly done. Same goes for utility skills, though the Intelligence one can be useful all around, much like the Charisma one, but if you focus on them early on you'll have to sit back throughout all battles, which sucks imo.

 

[Earth Dragon]

My solution, from a wannabe game designer for hire

- Remove learning rate decay with levels. If you want levels to measure experience don't mix them with skills.

- Attributes are assigned at character creation and they never change. The average Joe gets 5-6 in every attribute, sometimes a bit more or less. Very rare characters with above/below average stats. Attributes define skill caps. With low attribute low skills maximums, high stat -> high skill possible. Once or twice in a lifetime a character can increase one atribute by one point, representing years spent in the same activity, i.e. a scientist increasing intelligence or an atlhlete increasing endurance or vigor.

- Focus points are fixed at character creation. Say 18 focus points. Player can distribute them evenly or in different combinations: 5-5-5-1-1-1 4-4-4-2-2-2 3-3-3-3-3-3 ...
The beauty of focus points: they can be redistributed at any time, so the character focuses on those skills but can change them to focus on other skills.

- How to gain skill points: all skills are time based, if a character is focused on roguery, leadership and steward 5-5-5 he will gain skill points at rate * 5, if 1-1-1 at rate * 1 and so on. The rate is constant for every skill. It doesn't matter how many times you hit a looter with a club, it matters how many months you have been focused on learning your combat skills. Say 1 game-year at 5*rate is enough to get to 100 skill, 5 years at same rate to get to 200 skill.

Now you can specialize in a few skills or be a jack of all trades, your choice.

While I don’t know if this is THE solution, I much prefer this approach and criticism over insulting anyone and everyone who appreciates the core concepts of the leveling system, feeling it objectively strives to respect a sandbox experience over a completely combat driven leveling system, and insisting the baby get thrown out with the bath water

 

[ThePendulum]

I have played multiple 500+ day characters and it is such a grind. I usually start to hit a wall at level 13-14 at which point I have to grind other unrelated skills which is immersion breaking. Attibute points are so few and far between, most players will probably only get 3 during a play through!

I really hope leveling and perks get more attention soon as players will lose interest. I understand this is early access, but it would be a great opportunity to start working on balancing perks and the leveling system while you still have large test base. Thanks for the great game and all your hard work!

Completely agree

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

My solution, from a wannabe game designer for hire

- Remove learning rate decay with levels. If you want levels to measure experience don't mix them with skills.

- Attributes are assigned at character creation and they never change. The average Joe gets 5-6 in every attribute, sometimes a bit more or less. Very rare characters with above/below average stats. Attributes define skill caps. With low attribute low skills maximums, high stat -> high skill possible. Once or twice in a lifetime a character can increase one atribute by one point, representing years spent in the same activity, i.e. a scientist increasing intelligence or an atlhlete increasing endurance or vigor.

- Focus points are fixed at character creation. Say 18 focus points. Player can distribute them evenly or in different combinations: 5-5-5-1-1-1 4-4-4-2-2-2 3-3-3-3-3-3 ...
The beauty of focus points: they can be redistributed at any time, so the character focuses on those skills but can change them to focus on other skills.

- How to gain skill points: all skills are time based, if a character is focused on roguery, leadership and steward 5-5-5 he will gain skill points at rate * 5, if 1-1-1 at rate * 1 and so on. The rate is constant for every skill. It doesn't matter how many times you hit a looter with a club, it matters how many months you have been focused on learning your combat skills. Say 1 game-year at 5*rate is enough to get to 100 skill, 5 years at same rate to get to 200 skill.

Now you can specialize in a few skills or be a jack of all trades, your choice.

I like the idea of passive learning from FP, but only for passive skills, but char creation or other in game events should give them a big boost to make them useful. So say your character is studying medicine and passively gains skill over time (no need for team killing shenanigans ), but you also have Bonus to surgery/wound treatment from character background choices or buying an expensive book alla-warband.

I do think Combat and active skills should gain skill from use though but I think there should be adjustments to how much you gain baised of your skill versus the target. ATM there seems little difference between spamming shots into recruit blobs and long distance headshots on tier 5 units and lords.

I don't like current use of attributes but I don't like your idea either. I think they should have a separate use (not directly effecting skills) or be discarded.
They could maybe instead have them be like traits you character starts with that gives some other bonus and has a chance you pass on to childs... when childs work anyways.

 

[Schoulayer]

I'm not a fan of the default system either. I usually give myself 10 to all attributes, and mod the game so I learn skills 12x faster.

 

[Bramborough]

I share the frustrations of many ITT...didn't read every post, but more than half. Lots of great points. My own take, which isn't very different, but just my own articulation:

The system is inherently self-contradictory and self-defeating. They've implemented a "learn-by-doing" system that includes mechanics which at some point (sooner rather than later in many cases) prevent learning by doing.

Bannerlord leveling system, unlike most RPGs, isn't about maximizing a great character over time. It's about optimizing a relatively mediocre "good enough" character relatively quickly, within the hard constraints of a shrinking box. By the time your toon reaches, say, mid 20's in level, you better be pretty happy with it as is, because it's about as good as he/she is ever gonna be.

Whether that's TW's intended effect, I have no idea. In practice, however, it sure seems to me that's the way it's working out.

 

[TrashMan]

The biggest problem with the current system is:
a) slow leveling / almost impossible to level some skills - especially for companions
b) takes AGES to unlock perks. Requirements are downright insane!
c) no skill points in a skill means extra slow learning.

 

[xdj1nn]

I'm not a fan of the default system either. I usually give myself 10 to all attributes, and mod the game so I learn skills 12x faster.

I'll try your formula to get a feeling.
I still think that leveling should have it's barriers, though. Not because I think we should be limited, but because it would open the possibility of adding skill and attribute gains through quests.

So far I've only done 5 attributes to each with 5x xp, significantly more limiting than your formula, obviously. Maybe yours makes the game more fun in the current state haha

 

[shnauser]

Never come across a worse system for leveling than the one in Bannerlord. Can't come up with a single redeeming factor within the system. So how do you polish a turd of a system. Is it even possible?

It's not just the caps and the need for minmaxing and the lack of options to Role play, but even the skills them selves seem wrong.

Massive differences in progression rate between the skills and some skills compounding on them selves. To level up scouting you need scouting!?! To level up leadership you need leadership!?!

Javelin can't bee a primary way of combat as you just won't have enough javelins to make it worth while to specc into. Could easily be merged in to athletics instead as it is more of an third option combat skill.
Why is shield locked behind onehander? Never herd of lance/spear + shield combat.

Best way to level up riding regardless of how you play or what you want to play with is with a bow. Ride at max speed around enemies and just fire arrows into the blob of enemies.

Problems with this leveling system seem endless.

 

[Earth Dragon]

The biggest problem with the current system is:
a) slow leveling / almost impossible to level some skills - especially for companions
b) takes AGES to unlock perks. Requirements are downright insane!
c) no skill points in a skill means extra slow learning.

And these are the things that I think need to be tackled.

The complaint that it is now boring to level up your guy for the 12th time: irrelevant. This could be used against ANY leveling system.

But adjusting some of these things shouldn't be too hard. I feel shifting the learning limit from a base of -10 to would first and foremost fix many issues, as that's an additional 180 points spread all around. You could also increase the amount of attributes points being handed out. The tab SAYS one in three, but we are only getting one in four. The base shift would essentially be a bonus 6 attribute points, so just correcting it to one in three as described would probably be sufficient.

Next, All skills need at least a Primary and Secondary way to level that skill, and if appropriate, tertiary methods, such as how roguery works. As some of us have figured out, you are better off trying to level without any clan roles assigned, as you get the experience for those skills ONLY if you are acting as all those roles. If healing/taking damage helped with medicine, all companions got XP for spotting opposing parties, and other such things were applied, it would feel like less of a slog. I would say the aim should be for Primary to be a form of active use of the skill, as many are set-up now, while other forms of XP would be apprenticeship or "training" driven.

I also feel slow and steady changes are the way to go. Principally, there is no point making crazy changes and adjustments as we are slowly but surely getting more and more features. What seems like a good change now, could be very counterproductive once something else gets added, or an unintentional bug gets fixed

 

[GitiUsir]

At any rate, the way it is now forces you into a handful of skillsl, never able to specialize into anything properly, while at the same time forcing people to play a single style of combat, which is incredibly boring by late game

I don't like to grind skill points, not for me nor for companions. My idea is to avoid those stupid situations when you have to wait until your companions hit a few looters more, or you have to use the wrong weapon because you want to be reasonable good with every weapon.

In real life you learn by practice, imitation, studying, mistakes... You choose to focus on a skill until you are satisfied or limited by your own attributes. In any way it's a long process which you don't have to simulate in every detail. If you are working every day in the same job, and you are training every day the same skill you will get good with time.

By the way, this is the core of many games, if learning skills is not fun there is no point in playing. I want to feel that I'm getting good, not that I'm fighting against percentages and formulas.

 

[TrashMan]

Having to reach a skill level of 100+ before being able to take the second perk is insane

 

[Jhaerik]

I think that the feature where all skills get harder to level kind of forces you to be specialized, which is pretty cool in my opinion. I've never liked games that allow me to be a god at literally everything after a while. Warband was actually similar to this, with initial skill points coming in fast but slowing to a trickle after you got high enough level.

my major issue with how grindy levels are is that the game forces you to be fast paced, seeing as how much war everyone is at. It's not like warband where you could just mess around for hours and hours and jump in to global wars later, because by then a superpower is probably already growing and some factions might already be dead.

Considering the skills do so LITTLE you're never becoming a "god" of anything in Bannerlord. Personally I haven't touched it since 1.0.10 as 1.1.0 patch caused all kinda of new crashes, and performance issues for me, and in general just looked ugly as balls. I just haven't felt the urge to go through the boring grind of PL'ing up a new character and slogging through the awful skill system. Actually been playing more Skyrim again. I think Bannerlord made me appreciate Skyrim more.... It's the same boring grindy slog of PL'ing skills... but at least you feel somewhat rewarded for it as the skills and perks actually make a difference.

Also Bannerlord is perhaps the WORST example of being able to specialize of any RPG I've ever seen. You literally can't do that. If you try to focus on one thing you'll cap out on your level between 10 and 12. The game FORCES you to level everything or get nowhere. (At least so far as the entirely arbitrary skill system goes.) Truth is other than Charm, getting 90 riding, and getting enough skill to get all your HP increases the skills are worthless.

 

[xdj1nn]

I don't like to grind skill points, not for me nor for companions. My idea is to avoid those stupid situations when you have to wait until your companions hit a few looters more, or you have to use the wrong weapon because you want to be reasonable good with every weapon.

In real life you learn by practice, imitation, studying, mistakes... You choose to focus on a skill until you are satisfied or limited by your own attributes. In any way it's a long process which you don't have to simulate in every detail. If you are working every day in the same job, and you are training every day the same skill you will get good with time.

By the way, this is the core of many games, if learning skills is not fun there is no point in playing. I want to feel that I'm getting good, not that I'm fighting against percentages and formulas.

yep, agree

 

[StewVader]

And these are the things that I think need to be tackled.

The complaint that it is now boring to level up your guy for the 12th time: irrelevant. This could be used against ANY leveling system.

But adjusting some of these things shouldn't be too hard. I feel shifting the learning limit from a base of -10 to would first and foremost fix many issues, as that's an additional 180 points spread all around. You could also increase the amount of attributes points being handed out. The tab SAYS one in three, but we are only getting one in four. The base shift would essentially be a bonus 6 attribute points, so just correcting it to one in three as described would probably be sufficient.

Next, All skills need at least a Primary and Secondary way to level that skill, and if appropriate, tertiary methods, such as how roguery works. As some of us have figured out, you are better off trying to level without any clan roles assigned, as you get the experience for those skills ONLY if you are acting as all those roles. If healing/taking damage helped with medicine, all companions got XP for spotting opposing parties, and other such things were applied, it would feel like less of a slog. I would say the aim should be for Primary to be a form of active use of the skill, as many are set-up now, while other forms of XP would be apprenticeship or "training" driven.

I also feel slow and steady changes are the way to go. Principally, there is no point making crazy changes and adjustments as we are slowly but surely getting more and more features. What seems like a good change now, could be very counterproductive once something else gets added, or an unintentional bug gets fixed

You said "as we are slowly but surely getting more and more features".....um what features are you referring to? There are new new features since the EA launch.

 

[Jhaerik]

You said "as we are slowly but surely getting more and more features".....um what features are you referring to? There are new new features since the EA launch.

Personally I don't want to see "new" features. I want to see the features we have be semi functional. Starting with again.... a revamped of this awkward skill/leveling system. The current one just feels like a terrible mash up of Skyrim and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Both of which were inferior to earlier versions of their respective franchises.

M&B = Morrowind
Warband = Oblivion
Bannerlord = Skyrim.

For me it's always going to be Morrowind>Oblivion>Skyrim>Daggerfall>Arena.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

well, Callum did say that they were currently working on overhauling the perks. I really hope its a big overhaul to the entire system and not just some small tweaks.