Leveling skills is tedious and unbalanced

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Peepo93

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Hello,
the leveling system is the main reason why I've never gotten really engaged with the game. It's incredible frustrating and unbalanced and is much worse than Warband or most other RPGs. The leveling speed between the skills is incredible unbalanced and often takes far too long. For example Riding takes forever to level up (on a meele build at least, it feels ok on a ranged build but it also feels bad to "abuse" mechanics which will most likely get fixed at some point) and so does Scouting. Smithing requires me to wait most of the time in a city, it's effective but incredible and unsatisfying. I usually like crafting in RPGs but I don't like the crafting in Bannerlord.

I don't understand why they made the leveling system the way it is, it doesn't make sense. In most other RPGs (including Warband) I get a bonus to my stats immediately after leveling up. I also get XP for killing mobs and for quests. None of that is the case in Bannerlord, the game doesn't even make a difference between the enemies I'm fighting. Killing a looter gives the same progress as killing a T6 unit. I just can't get engaged with these systems, they feel boring, tedious and grindy. I don't know anybody who wants to grind in a singleplayer game, it also ruins the replayability.

Since it's unlikely that they're gonna rework the entire leveling system I think they should really fine tune the skills and make skills like smithing way faster to level (and faster to unlock parts) but a bit less profitable. Also NPCs which could act as a trainer would be nice. On top of that they should take the opponent into consideration. Killing a T6 unit should give significant progress towards a skill while killing a looter shouldn't give much progress after the early levels.

Maybe I'm a bit overdramatic here but it's getting a bit disheartening. I understand that they're a small company and that coding the game takes time but they could communicate a lot more with the community. It would be really nice to know which things will be changed and what stays like it is so that we don't have to relearn parts of the game when the next major patch gets released.
 
To level your Riding, use a crossbow on a horse, that works well enough. A trick I used use to use to level my inapt and unable little sister and brother, I have since gone to CharacterManager, this mod saves the game from rubbish bin.
And what about Athletics !!!! Impossible leveling... at level 1 your are just disabled, unable to perform whatever exists, even the most common or unsignificant thing lol...
Anyway, I have bypassed those deep annoyments with CharacterManager, allows also to fix perks on companions. For example a foot melee companion with the "cavalry" perk in One Handed, I call that Artificial Stupidity but not Artificial Intelligence, sorry for the devs.
Without the console and mods, I would not play this game :smile:
There are plenty of good ideas but the realization is a catastrophe ! Stop the randomizing on skills, employ me and I will make you decent heroes and lords with skills according to their traits and martial skills, and even a bit of background if I am on a good day :smile:
When you see that non-warrior lords, at day 1700, who started Riding at 100 and are still at 103... it is possible to give them opportunity to level, but not with a stupid idiot system giving them the wrong perks and focus points randomly...
When I start a new game, I spent around 2-3 hours, with CharacterManager (now it's ok I have the templates, but took like 2-3 days the first time) to fix and give perks and skills to major lords of the game, that is to say, all. Mainly focus points, allows them to improve skills, cause when you have 150 in steward with 1 or zero focus point, that is clear that the character will my-ass-level : nothing, if you just give them 2-3 more focus points in the skill, they will at least be able to progress in the game, which seems logical.
I'm a fixer and allergic to all inconsistancies, and nowadays, there is a work to do, I should be rich lol :smile:

You are not overdramatic, you just noted the facts.
Like I said, even companions like "the bull", supposed to be a melee footman, may have "cavalry perk" in one hand... please guys, make an effort, randomization is irrevelant here.... but probably spares time, and money? right?
Kisses :wink:
 
For example Riding takes forever to level up (on a meele build at least, it feels ok on a ranged build but it also feels bad to "abuse" mechanics which will most likely get fixed at some point)
Yes but don't hold your breath. I do think they mentioned working on the riding/ranged "bonus" though. It'll still be faster then melee just because you can machine gun arrows into a blob of enemies all day, Xbow we'll have to see how they change the exp calc.
and so does Scouting.
Yeah and it can suffer from rng because seeing tracks is your biggest skill gain and whether you see them is a %chance. You need about 50 scouting too before you even have a okay chance to see them. After that it's a lot better, but in some games I get 200+ skill in like 300 days and some games it's 600 days+ so it really can ? you. It's also possible some versions bug something or other with tracks, hard to know.
Smithing requires me to wait most of the time in a city
Yeah this kills it for me. While you wait your enemies undo all your work in the field. Of course, since there's no early game pressure on the player, players can front load the game with smithing and trading and such. however many seem to lean on it too much and get stuck mid game using it for money when enemies are re-building armies constantly.

They needs to do a lot of works still on this stuff and I hope they've been at it. Every update I'm hoping for something for medicine skill.
 
the effects are also weak
the difference between 0 and 200 combat skill is only like 15% making everyone re-textured peasants

leveling tactics and medicine is insane, you'll need to loose 10,000 troops to get 250
 
To level your Riding, use a crossbow on a horse, that works well enough. A trick I used use to use to level my inapt and unable little sister and brother, I have since gone to CharacterManager, this mod saves the game from rubbish bin.
And what about Athletics !!!! Impossible leveling... at level 1 your are just disabled, unable to perform whatever exists, even the most common or unsignificant thing lol...
Anyway, I have bypassed those deep annoyments with CharacterManager, allows also to fix perks on companions. For example a foot melee companion with the "cavalry" perk in One Handed, I call that Artificial Stupidity but not Artificial Intelligence, sorry for the devs.
Without the console and mods, I would not play this game :smile:
There are plenty of good ideas but the realization is a catastrophe ! Stop the randomizing on skills, employ me and I will make you decent heroes and lords with skills according to their traits and martial skills, and even a bit of background if I am on a good day :smile:
When you see that non-warrior lords, at day 1700, who started Riding at 100 and are still at 103... it is possible to give them opportunity to level, but not with a stupid idiot system giving them the wrong perks and focus points randomly...
When I start a new game, I spent around 2-3 hours, with CharacterManager (now it's ok I have the templates, but took like 2-3 days the first time) to fix and give perks and skills to major lords of the game, that is to say, all. Mainly focus points, allows them to improve skills, cause when you have 150 in steward with 1 or zero focus point, that is clear that the character will my-ass-level : nothing, if you just give them 2-3 more focus points in the skill, they will at least be able to progress in the game, which seems logical.
I'm a fixer and allergic to all inconsistancies, and nowadays, there is a work to do, I should be rich lol :smile:

You are not overdramatic, you just noted the facts.
Like I said, even companions like "the bull", supposed to be a melee footman, may have "cavalry perk" in one hand... please guys, make an effort, randomization is irrevelant here.... but probably spares time, and money? right?
Kisses :wink:
Yes, Athletics is another skill that's painful to level up. I just wish the level system would be closer to Warband where you just get XP for killing and doing quests and then just put your skill points into the skills which you want to improve. That's a lot less complicated and makes everything much easier to balance. With the current system they would have to fine tune everything so some skills don't take far longer to level up than others while also making the way of leveling up these perks fun instead of a boring grind. For example Smithing is a boring grind. At least it's faster than Athletics, Medicine, Scouting etc but it's still boring.
And don't get me started about companions and lords. That's where the leveling system becomes a real mess.
I think mods are indeed the best way to keep the game interesting but I don't think that people should have to rely on mods in order to make the game fun.

Yes but don't hold your breath. I do think they mentioned working on the riding/ranged "bonus" though. It'll still be faster then melee just because you can machine gun arrows into a blob of enemies all day, Xbow we'll have to see how they change the exp calc.
That's what I'm worried about. Instead of fixing the problem that Riding doesn't give any XP they might fix the workaround which allows people to level that skill up. I often see this when developers get tunnelvisioned on fixing bugs and instead of making the game more fun they end up as fun police. Saw a video which claims that a meele kill on a mount gives 10-20 XP towards Riding. With 10 Focus points in endurance and 5 attribute points in Riding I would need like 30-50 thousand (!!!) kills to get that skill to high level. Like yeah, that's not gonna happen.

the effects are also weak
the difference between 0 and 200 combat skill is only like 15% making everyone re-textured peasants

leveling tactics and medicine is insane, you'll need to loose 10,000 troops to get 250
I agree with that. In Warband rising your strength and athletics attribute also improved both ranged and meele damage at the same time, so building your character around combat makes you very powerful, meanwhile in Bannerlord I don't feel like it's worth to invest much into combat abilities. I put 5 focus points into Polearm and Bow usually and don't spend any attribute points there.

Yeah this kills it for me. While you wait your enemies undo all your work in the field. Of course, since there's no early game pressure on the player, players can front load the game with smithing and trading and such. however many seem to lean on it too much and get stuck mid game using it for money when enemies are re-building armies constantly.
I think smithing needs an entire rework. I'd like to be able to level it up fast and use it to craft weapons for myself instead of making money with it. Right now smithing is very rewarding but also extremely boring (I usually love crafting in RPGs but this iteration is frustrating).
 
I miss the warband levelling system. The core gameplay loop of M&B is to fight battles, and the warband levelling played into that. You fight and win battles, get experience, level up, and invest your points where needed. But with bannerlord you're forced to do busywork to get anywhere. Like, I don't want to spend hours acting like a ****ing merchant to get my trade skill high, I want to fight **** and win battles. With the warband system, you could do exactly that, and just invest your skill points into trading if that's what you wanted.

It also doesn't help that your overall level is tied into your overall skill experience, so if you ever hit the soft-cap for your skill level, you're forced to do **** you don't want to in order to increase your level. You can't just be a warrior, because you will never reach your max level potential.

I hope someone makes a warband levelling mod
 
The core gameplay loop of M&B is to fight battles, and the warband levelling played into that. You fight and win battles, get experience, level up, and invest your points where needed. But with bannerlord you're forced to do busywork to get anywhere. Like, I don't want to spend hours acting like a ****ing merchant to get my trade skill high, I want to fight **** and win battles. With the warband system, you could do exactly that, and just invest your skill points into trading if that's what you wanted.
I strongly disagree. The core gameplay loop of M&B is to do what you want within the confines of the game mechanics, it's a sandbox for a reason. If you dont want to fight battles because you're roleplaying a merchant, you don't have to. Playing as a merchant is supposed to be a viable route if you are so inclined, and WB leveling system absolutely sucked for this. Yes, the current system has many issues and problems, but WB was not ideal.

To me it makes perfect sense that doing the thing you want to do is what makes you good at it. It was always very stupid to me that you leveled trading by slaughtering enemies. Makes no logical sense and is very poor for roleplay. Not to mention that if you slaughter enemies to get good at trading, you effectively handicap yourself because you're not leveling ways of slaughtering more enemies to get more xp. So the whole system, while in certain ways very comfy, was ass-backwards.
 
I miss the warband levelling system. The core gameplay loop of M&B is to fight battles, and the warband levelling played into that. You fight and win battles, get experience, level up, and invest your points where needed. But with bannerlord you're forced to do busywork to get anywhere. Like, I don't want to spend hours acting like a ****ing merchant to get my trade skill high, I want to fight **** and win battles. With the warband system, you could do exactly that, and just invest your skill points into trading if that's what you wanted.
Exactly, I prefer doing that too.

I strongly disagree. The core gameplay loop of M&B is to do what you want within the confines of the game mechanics, it's a sandbox for a reason. If you dont want to fight battles because you're roleplaying a merchant, you don't have to. Playing as a merchant is supposed to be a viable route if you are so inclined, and WB leveling system absolutely sucked for this. Yes, the current system has many issues and problems, but WB was not ideal.

To me it makes perfect sense that doing the thing you want to do is what makes you good at it. It was always very stupid to me that you leveled trading by slaughtering enemies. Makes no logical sense and is very poor for roleplay. Not to mention that if you slaughter enemies to get good at trading, you effectively handicap yourself because you're not leveling ways of slaughtering more enemies to get more xp. So the whole system, while in certain ways very comfy, was ass-backwards.
Fair enough, WB leveling isn't good for roleplayers. Maybe a fair compromise would be to make leveling up skills much faster (at least some of them like Scouting, Medicine, Athletics, Riding, unlocking smithing parts...) and implement trainers into the game (similar to Skyrim) which allow you to buy your skill level up with money.
 
Hello,
the leveling system is the main reason why I've never gotten really engaged with the game. It's incredible frustrating and unbalanced and is much worse than Warband or most other RPGs. The leveling speed between the skills is incredible unbalanced and often takes far too long. For example Riding takes forever to level up (on a meele build at least, it feels ok on a ranged build but it also feels bad to "abuse" mechanics which will most likely get fixed at some point) and so does Scouting. Smithing requires me to wait most of the time in a city, it's effective but incredible and unsatisfying. I usually like crafting in RPGs but I don't like the crafting in Bannerlord.

I don't understand why they made the leveling system the way it is, it doesn't make sense. In most other RPGs (including Warband) I get a bonus to my stats immediately after leveling up. I also get XP for killing mobs and for quests. None of that is the case in Bannerlord, the game doesn't even make a difference between the enemies I'm fighting. Killing a looter gives the same progress as killing a T6 unit. I just can't get engaged with these systems, they feel boring, tedious and grindy. I don't know anybody who wants to grind in a singleplayer game, it also ruins the replayability.

Since it's unlikely that they're gonna rework the entire leveling system I think they should really fine tune the skills and make skills like smithing way faster to level (and faster to unlock parts) but a bit less profitable. Also NPCs which could act as a trainer would be nice. On top of that they should take the opponent into consideration. Killing a T6 unit should give significant progress towards a skill while killing a looter shouldn't give much progress after the early levels.

Maybe I'm a bit overdramatic here but it's getting a bit disheartening. I understand that they're a small company and that coding the game takes time but they could communicate a lot more with the community. It would be really nice to know which things will be changed and what stays like it is so that we don't have to relearn parts of the game when the next major patch gets released.
I had a pretty massive topic on the subject along with multiple suggestion topics as to how they could tackle this to make it better. It's been almost 2 years, they never gave any consideration to it. I do agree with you, the game progression feels fleeting and boring, to add to the injury their armor soaking and dmg values calculations are really bad in BL, in WB they were okay-ish but the pinnacle I've seen were in mods like 1257ad and one of the Game of Thrones mods for the original Warband

In those armor was, well, actually armor and protected you, swords were a gimmick (as they should, no army would carry swords into the battlefield as a primary weapon until very late Medieval era and Renaissance; even than it were the big Claymore/Greatswoord style weapons developed to counter pike formations, not to hack n slash); Making maces spears and lances really outperform any swords was great, needing either momentum build-up or the appropriate weapon to actually dmg an armored opponent significantly, etc. The only thing I had going against 1257 was that the spears there broke way too easily, it was quite unrealistic in that regard, and annoying.

Anyway, probably overtime modders will def. fix these things, but if the base-game adhered to it as a staple, that would automatically improve all mods by default, we'll probably be stuck again in the same loop of having to chose between decent combat mechanics vs epic features among mods themselves though. Examples are both the previously mentioned for Combat, and for features Pendor and the other one based off of it were great feature-wise, yet their combat and base mechanics often felt poor and boring, instead of balancing it good, in PoP for instance, they've capitalized on the natural M&B imbalance regarding ranged weapons, making mounted archers demi-gods, and archer + mounted archer formations the best choice for players as to preserve troops...
 
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I think the core issue of why the leveling is "boring" basically or not good enough atm isnt directly that we feel forced to do xyz as much.

But the skills overall in some cases dont progress fast enough.

I think they should rethink the amount of attribute points we get or how often we get'em each 3rd lvl is perhaps too low, should be each 2
That would help out heaps, or maybe more focus pts, like keep the atribute as is, but on that 3rd you get +2 to spend.

Some skills is fairly fun to lvl up, or do so on its own at a decent rate(steward for instance).
Leadership and trade is not good.
Needing 75 for it to improve(unless you lead armies of course) is way to high, prolly should have been 65.(and yes I know you can have alot of other boosters to happeiness from other sources etc.
When upgradeing a troop that should give you leadership for instance would help tremendous, besides hireing the troops.
Trade was the most boring thing I've lvl to 300 so far, I didnt use sploits etc, and just traded mules and other goods, horrible progression system, needs to be more sources to lvl it up, or faster(I had 9 CHA and 5 focus pts, sure with 10 it would have gone even faster, but you know there is a limited amount of atribute pts we get after all(again too limited imo).
 
Arguably bannerlord copied Skyrims leveling system. Use the skill to gain the skill. And Skyrim certainly suffers from the same issue in terms of advancing some skills.

Just food for thought.
 
Arguably bannerlord copied Skyrims leveling system. Use the skill to gain the skill. And Skyrim certainly suffers from the same issue in terms of advancing some skills.

Just food for thought.

Very true(its the same system that was in Oblivion aswell(I didnt play the previous TES games to say if it was there awell).
That the problem though some of the skills level fine in Bannerlord, some is like watching paint dry on the wall..

I still think they could maybe add in more atribute pts or focus.
That way those slow/boring/tedious skills wouldnt be that bad.
I personally prefered the system in Warband over this though. (dont get me wrong its good, but still needs some tlc imo).
 
I like Bannerlord's "learn by doing" levelling system over Warband's. Feels more immersive and makes roleplaying non-combat builds more viable and believable.

The only real issue for how levelling works for me is that it feels a bit too slow overall, especially on certain skills (trade, roguery, medicine). Focus points and attributes should buff your XP multiplier more, and those aforementioned skills should gain more XP.

Broader issues with the skills system are that Engineering doesn't really feel like it does anything, Tactics buffs autocalc battles more than it buffs real battles so leveling it discourages you from fighting real battles, and Athletics isn't good enough to be worth playing the game on foot or let you catch someone while wearing armour even if fully leveled.
 
The system is fine. It's just way way too slow for some skills, even with 5 focus points into it.
Medicine and Leadership are a pain to level up. Not fun at all, even with full points.
Charm and Stewardship are fun because you actually make progress.
Leveling up your weapon feels good, as there is plenty opportunity. It's just pretty dumb that you can't level them in the Arena.

I don't even bother with Trade, Roguery, Engineering, Tactics, Scouting...
They are not worth the huge grind it takes to level them.

Skyrim at least had skill trainers where you could level up, Bannerlord has nothing.
 
I don't even bother with Trade, Roguery, Engineering, Tactics, Scouting...
Scouting lvls by traveling (no input required).
Engineering lvls by using siege engines during sieging (as of 1.7.2 - no input required).
Roguery lvls by siege breaks (10-20 skills per siege break).
Tactics lvls by auto-resolving (only affects auto-resolving aswell).
Trade lvl by trading, agreed the lvling is super slow and forces you to trade mules/horses.
I think all of the above are ok. Real problem are skills like medicine. How to level medicine? Loose troops. It literally asks us to loose the game. There's perk at 75 leting us heal enemy troops, but that doesn't provide any xp.
I like Bannerlord's "learn by doing" levelling system over Warband's. Feels more immersive and makes roleplaying non-combat builds more viable and believable.
If only it worked that way. At later levels, you are forced to level skills that you never wanted to. In Warband it was. Play however you want, just kill things. In bannerlord it's play whatever you want, but you gotta get all vigor/control/etc. skills maxed if you wanna level up...
Broader issues with the skills system are that Engineering doesn't really feel like it does anything,
Disagreed. Engineering provides a lot. Fire onagers are super accurate. Healthier/faster trebuchets and siege camps are very useful late game. Most of my sieges, thanks to engineering are a breeze. Only problem is inability to order companions to use the onager (to level their engineering for stewarding).
I personally prefered the system in Warband over this though.
I prefer Bannerlord, huge problem is the companions. Bannerlord skill lvling for companions is A***. I just want my companions to get xp per battle, no matter if they fight or not.
Arguably bannerlord copied Skyrims leveling system. Use the skill to gain the skill. And Skyrim certainly suffers from the same issue in terms of advancing some skills.
The idea is very good. Problem is it comes down to doing it on looters and not by pasively playing the game. For example multiply the xp bonus for using 2 hander on T5 troop, by 5 and boom. The further you get in game the more xp you get.

Main problem currently with Bannerlord skills is how it's efficient to lvl skills. In Warband? Fight. Kill hight lvl troops. Play the game in any way you want. Just enjoy the game.
In Bannerlord ... Fight... Kill looters... Kite them around your companions until they get skill ups ... We literally have to babysit our companions for them to lvl up (partially, because of how weak armor is) or fight the looters ourselves, because it's painfully slow to level skills otherwise.
 
Leveling up your weapon feels good, as there is plenty opportunity. It's just pretty dumb that you can't level them in the Arena.
I think you can level them in the arena? I've done full early games just travelling from arena to arena... but I'll admit it's been awhile since ive played SP.
 
I think you can level them in the arena? I've done full early games just travelling from arena to arena... but I'll admit it's been awhile since ive played SP.
Arena lvling rate is reduced for some reason. Place meant for training has a penalty for training...
 
Do any Quests tie into more rapid or advanced or specialized Perks/Attributes building? That would be one way to liven up the Quests while at the same time helping this issue
 
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