Leveling system still unenjoyable and unbalanced

Does the leveling system SUCK?

  • yes

    Votes: 110 75.3%
  • no

    Votes: 14 9.6%
  • anime tiddies

    Votes: 35 24.0%

  • Total voters
    146

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Even with investing in 5 focus points in Leadership really early on (started the character with 25 Leadership, first perk unlocked) after a dozen hours and my army now being 100 man strong with high morale around 80 all the time fighting enemy lords - i only got 10 points of Leadership now being around 35. That is ridiculously unfun and grindy.

Same with Roguery, i run around with 50 Forest Bandits, but fighting with them and leading them you don't even get any Roguery Skill.
Village needs manual labor. Give him some slaves. No roguery skill.
5 Forest bandits don't want to die and instead want to join me, I'll accept - no roguery skill.
The only time i get some noticeable roguery skill is when i sell some prisoners at the tavern.

It's all really ridiculously slow and grindy. It's so broken.

Stewardship is one of the only skills that are fun to level up - but the more you level up - the slower it will get for every other skill. That's so stupid.
Yeah roguery is very slow and petty (or broken?) with the other ways to get skill besides selling prisoners, which is still slow. I make 10 cunning char for scouting and the roguery and tactics just linger in the low-mid 100s for tactics and 50-75 for roguery, forever and ever until the campaign gets discarded for a new update :sad:

With leadership you have to have a big party and/or lead armies. I think it's just an amount for how many units all together but I actually don't know. For instance my big party versus 1/2 and 1/2 in companion party in army with me seems about the same. Only with with full party in army did I get more skill and loading up on as many parties as I could helped more and more. I hate being in faction either my own or as vasal so I often just kinda put leadership on the shelf. I add points when they're spare but it slowly makes it way up after I have a 100+ party all the time. It's very slow if you don't create an army constantly but I think "well maybe someday".

Scouting usually levels okay. however in 1.5.8 I don't think hideouts are spawning properly and so my growth is very stunted as that's a main way of getting scouting is finding hide outs. Once you have 100+ and can see more tracks you get it pretty decently, but until then you don't see tracks much :sad: I'm at 55 when by this time in past games It would be at 150.
 
I like the system, but not the learning rates. Different things if you ask me.

I love the fact they added attributes influencing specific sets of skills, and also the focus system, it's a great way to represent one's natural knack for a certain skill(attributes) AND the effort put into it(focus). In order to be truly legendary in a skill, you need both the talent and the effort, and that's reasonably realistic.

That said, i think there are adjustments to be made...first off, they could reconsider your main char initial skills and attributes,since they are very low. We start severely handicapped when you compare to the other lords who are the same age. Also, an interesting option to the character creation would be to increase your skills by starting the game older than default.

The books, as previously mentioned, should definitely be back to help with skills and attributes, and perhaps some special rare artifacts as well.

I suspect that they do not consider it a priority because, pretty much like the current death rates - they're gathering feedback and will fine tune at some point. Would be nice to hear from them though.
 
Even with investing in 5 focus points in Leadership really early on (started the character with 25 Leadership, first perk unlocked) after a dozen hours and my army now being 100 man strong with high morale around 80 all the time fighting enemy lords - i only got 10 points of Leadership now being around 35. That is ridiculously unfun and grindy.

Same with Roguery, i run around with 50 Forest Bandits, but fighting with them and leading them you don't even get any Roguery Skill.
Village needs manual labor. Give him some slaves. No roguery skill.
5 Forest bandits don't want to die and instead want to join me, I'll accept - no roguery skill.
The only time i get some noticeable roguery skill is when i sell some prisoners at the tavern.

It's all really ridiculously slow and grindy. It's so broken.

Stewardship is one of the only skills that are fun to level up - but the more you level up - the slower it will get for every other skill. That's so stupid.
Exactly... I said this before, leadership should give proper exp for hiring and leading normal troops, and roguery should give proper exp for hiring and leading bandit troops (some exp when you hire, and some exp when you battle with them or just some daily exp)... Sadly it is very slow. Leadership = you only get in decent amounts when leading armies, and I don't like doing that and it makes no sense to be this way... it's an ultra-late-game skill, unenjoyable. I agree with everything you say, including the quest where you give slaves but gain no roguery skill. And even sadder, I don't even think the 'no defection' perk is implemented yet, I'm waiting for what feels like 3 patches now...

And yeah, leveling speed goes down so the skills that you can actually level only make you not able to grind the other slower-attainable skills. It's really, really bad and sad... Even now after my exams I really struggle to enjoy playing the game again, but leveling has the same issues. It's VERY slow later on, and I just can't grind and have fun. I really hope next patch they solve this, it's just not good.
Yeah roguery is very slow and petty (or broken?) with the other ways to get skill besides selling prisoners, which is still slow. I make 10 cunning char for scouting and the roguery and tactics just linger in the low-mid 100s for tactics and 50-75 for roguery, forever and ever until the campaign gets discarded for a new update :sad:

With leadership you have to have a big party and/or lead armies. I think it's just an amount for how many units all together but I actually don't know. For instance my big party versus 1/2 and 1/2 in companion party in army with me seems about the same. Only with with full party in army did I get more skill and loading up on as many parties as I could helped more and more. I hate being in faction either my own or as vasal so I often just kinda put leadership on the shelf. I add points when they're spare but it slowly makes it way up after I have a 100+ party all the time. It's very slow if you don't create an army constantly but I think "well maybe someday".

Scouting usually levels okay. however in 1.5.8 I don't think hideouts are spawning properly and so my growth is very stunted as that's a main way of getting scouting is finding hide outs. Once you have 100+ and can see more tracks you get it pretty decently, but until then you don't see tracks much :sad: I'm at 55 when by this time in past games It would be at 150.
I am the same way, I hate being in a faction. I really like being independent and doing my own growing in the world, so I feel the same way about leadership. When am I going to get that extra companion? Probably never... I tried leveling scouting atm too, and indeed seems slower than I remember it
I like the system, but not the learning rates. Different things if you ask me.

I love the fact they added attributes influencing specific sets of skills, and also the focus system, it's a great way to represent one's natural knack for a certain skill(attributes) AND the effort put into it(focus). In order to be truly legendary in a skill, you need both the talent and the effort, and that's reasonably realistic.

That said, i think there are adjustments to be made...first off, they could reconsider your main char initial skills and attributes,since they are very low. We start severely handicapped when you compare to the other lords who are the same age. Also, an interesting option to the character creation would be to increase your skills by starting the game older than default.

The books, as previously mentioned, should definitely be back to help with skills and attributes, and perhaps some special rare artifacts as well.

I suspect that they do not consider it a priority because, pretty much like the current death rates - they're gathering feedback and will fine tune at some point. Would be nice to hear from them though.
Well I kept asking and asking, and a developer answered me finally. They say they are looking into ways of improving it, so I only hope they see all the feedback and really make it better in one of the next patches, then the game will be a lot more enjoyable to play. The system can be good, but it has some major flaws right now... apart from the lack of balance for each skill in particular to be level-able properly, there are some things that just shouldn't be a thing... When you level-up, overall exp earned for ALL the skills goes down, so it becomes extremely slow later on when exp requirements keep increasing. This cannot be made into a consistent system the way it is now... it's climbing a steeper and steeper mountain. My suggestion is increase exp requirements for the start skills (1-100) and severely decrease from 100-300, making it a more consistent progression (of course exp requirements should increase, but not by as much as it increases now... there are many skills - 300+, and it's truly unneeded the way they did it now). Attributes and focus point should also give permanent bonuses to learning rate, there should be no hard-cap to skills (let them level very slowly, but they should still be attainable... that way you feel like you are actually doing something in the world, even if not much). And they should give less exp learning rate bonus just because it's permanent... so something like 10x exp for a skill that has 10 attributes and focus points seems really fair. The system can be improved in many ways, the idea might be good, but the implementation is truly lacking at the moment sadly. I do have hope though
 
I'm fine with everything about it except that advancing in one skill slows my advancement in another. That part really sucks, and breaks immersion since then I have to think about strategizing my character development around an arbitrary game mechanic.

Just changing this single aspect would make the game a lot more enjoyable later on. Happens with every playthrough, tedious grinding to reach very low skill levels, wanting to abandon my character only because the game mechanics are preventing me from developing a necessary skill for the mid or late game.
 
I'm fine with everything about it except that advancing in one skill slows my advancement in another. That part really sucks, and breaks immersion since then I have to think about strategizing my character development around an arbitrary game mechanic.

Just changing this single aspect would make the game a lot more enjoyable later on. Happens with every playthrough, tedious grinding to reach very low skill levels, wanting to abandon my character only because the game mechanics are preventing me from developing a necessary skill for the mid or late game.
exactly how I feel about it too, it becomes really unnatural to play the game... and even if you plan everything out, it still becomes unbearably slow to actually achieve that and the game becomes stale and boring way too fast (a lot of repetitiveness)... this actually happens to me EVERY time I play, exactly what you say. I actually abandon my character every time after a few hours in the game on every new patch, because this isn't improved yet...

With this mod, the level progression is really better. https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/2228?tab=description
Not really op. It's the only mod i use with the game and with it, the progression is perfect (imo)
From the description of the mod it seems quite a level-headed person made it, so I might give it a try if the leveling progression won't be fixed properly... the attribute every 2 levels seems kinda much though, maybe every third level would be better? But it seems ok otherwise, and I'm glad there are mods for this. I still wait for it to be fixed in the game though so I can also give feedback on it rather than using mods, so I'm still waiting...
 
My new playing policy is to not put a single focus point into Steward. Previously that's been a source of steady skill progression and level advancement, but now I see its increases come at the expense of all else, so I just enjoy the game less for a game mechanic that doesn't need to be there and really doesn't represent how we learn in either a realistic or fun way.

Really hope Taleworlds fixes this, because now that I'm aware of it it's a real drag. I lost interest entirely in my mid-level character, since I realize he's 'finished' now and endless war without character development really seems quite pointless.
 
Perhaps notable as far as that goes, I developed my character from creation to be a two-handed specialist. Of course, these aren't so available in the early-game at all, so I fought with one-handed and shield for the time being. My one-handed got up to about 100 or so when I switched....

So...because my character has the analog references of one-handed swords to lean on to learn to wield two-handed swords, he now learns...painfully slow...?
 
Really hope Taleworlds fixes this, because now that I'm aware of it it's a real drag. I lost interest entirely in my mid-level character, since I realize he's 'finished' now and endless war without character development really seems quite pointless.
100% this. This is how I've been feeling for numerous patches at this point. Character development is so important, so it gets boring really quick because we just don't have that past a certain point...
Perhaps notable as far as that goes, I developed my character from creation to be a two-handed specialist. Of course, these aren't so available in the early-game at all, so I fought with one-handed and shield for the time being. My one-handed got up to about 100 or so when I switched....

So...because my character has the analog references of one-handed swords to lean on to learn to wield two-handed swords, he now learns...painfully slow...?
exactly, this limit doesn't make sense at all... and as you said, it's not fun nor is it realistic. Realistic it would be if you stop using certain high-level skills then the skill would start going down, and this wouldn't affect the leveling speed of other skills. As for fun, I'm not sure if it would be, but at least it is realistic. Top level chess players admit that if they stop practicing for a day or two they play worse, so they have to play every day... it's true for most skills in life at least when you reach a master level. Honestly, it would be fine if I stopped using two-handed for a while to start losing skill and perks being locked again, if that means that we would level our skills a lot quicker etc, but I don't know how TW would balance every skill. For example, engineering would need constant besieging of castles, it doesn't seem feasible. Yet, there are better solutions, and they all involve removing the "reduced exp gain for skills after level-up" thingy... plus other balancing of course
 
I'm fine with everything about it except that advancing in one skill slows my advancement in another.
It doesn't, though.
I just want to point out too, so there's no confusion: You gain equal MC level up EXP for all skill actions regardless of the learning rate, including ZERO learning rate. This means you cannot try to out smart the leveling up as you will get just as much exp from everything you do in the game no matter how you spec your character.
Advancing in level - which is related to anything you do, regardless of focus - basic progression through the game - slows down your advancement. Quite marginally.

Again, I think the fundamental problem is not with levelling/skills, but levelling/skills compared to certain other mechanics - mainly, the speed at which you can acquire renown and increase clan level (and seeing your younger brother with more attribute points than you). It's jarring to be be battling to round-off your starting character - as a monarch controlling vast territories and your clan maxed out within 10/15 years (compared to clans which have existed for hundreds). But that's mostly because renown/clan progression is too fast.
 
It doesn't, though.
It totally does. I never meant that's the direct algorithm, but if you can't figure it out from there and you're just being short and dismissive anyway, this should suffice.
 
Another thing I realized is that it doesn't even fit the game's context. The player doesn't really have the feasible option to reach the skill-level of other NPC's in the game, not even of the player's brother. No chance especially by the equivalent levels.

Look at NPC's like Svana, for example. And isn't she like level 21?
 
It totally does. I never meant that's the direct algorithm, but if you can't figure it out from there and you're just being short and dismissive anyway, this should suffice.
What followed should indicate I wasn't being short and dismissive, just politely disagreeing.
 
What followed should indicate I wasn't being short and dismissive, just politely disagreeing.
Okay...what follows was directed to someone else, as I read it, but for what it's worth you get that I was referencing that increasing skills increases your level which slows my ability to advance in other skills, right?

It's a lot less messy and I thought clear within the context of the thread how I said it first, at least I thought so. :wink:
 
As to the claim that the affect is "quite marginal" -- I think that's a strange choice of words, since it refers to something at the margin of things and what we're talking about is a difference of many multiples over. At the start of the game I see multiples approaching 12, and as the game goes on these multiples drop to 2.

I don't think that's what I would consider quite marginal, no more marginal than mounted combat in this game.
 
As to the claim that the affect is "quite marginal" -- I think that's a strange choice of words, since it refers to something at the margin of things and what we're talking about is a difference of many multiples over. At the start of the game I see multiples approaching 12, and as the game goes on these multiples drop to 2.

I don't think that's what I would consider quite marginal, no more marginal than mounted combat in this game.
I think a lot of people completely miss this, that with a well planned out character you often start the game with very high learning rates for the skills you chose via background, like 8-12 multiplier often. Then almost immediately it plummets much lower just from beating a few loots or doing the tutorial a leveling up a couple times.
 
I just checked in game, and a skill of 0 with no focus points supported by an attribute of 4 will have a multiplier of x4.73 at level 2, the start of the game, and x1.79 by only level 19.
 
I think a lot of people completely miss this, that with a well planned out character you often start the game with very high learning rates for the skills you chose via background, like 8-12 multiplier often. Then almost immediately it plummets much lower just from beating a few loots or doing the tutorial a leveling up a couple times.
Exactly. Or if you dare wait too much and allow Steward to increase on you, or heaven forbid you do any smithing. Of course smithing is broken, but I'm talking about the increasing of the skill itself and associated level advancement. I just looked my abandoned character over, and in preparation for him being a two-handed specialist I went and grinded his smithing up over 200, so he could craft his own two-hander for late-game. His two-handed skill is pathetic, and the grinding I would have to do to make this character work does not sound fun or appealing. I notice I haven't played him in almost a week.
 
Yeah roguery is very slow and petty (or broken?) with the other ways to get skill besides selling prisoners, which is still slow. I make 10 cunning char for scouting and the roguery and tactics just linger in the low-mid 100s for tactics and 50-75 for roguery, forever and ever until the campaign gets discarded for a new update :sad:

With leadership you have to have a big party and/or lead armies. I think it's just an amount for how many units all together but I actually don't know. For instance my big party versus 1/2 and 1/2 in companion party in army with me seems about the same. Only with with full party in army did I get more skill and loading up on as many parties as I could helped more and more. I hate being in faction either my own or as vasal so I often just kinda put leadership on the shelf. I add points when they're spare but it slowly makes it way up after I have a 100+ party all the time. It's very slow if you don't create an army constantly but I think "well maybe someday".

Scouting usually levels okay. however in 1.5.8 I don't think hideouts are spawning properly and so my growth is very stunted as that's a main way of getting scouting is finding hide outs. Once you have 100+ and can see more tracks you get it pretty decently, but until then you don't see tracks much :sad: I'm at 55 when by this time in past games It would be at 150.
Correct the larger the party the faster leadership grows. If I'm not mistaken it's the same way for leading armies. But even so with leading a huge party and large army it's pitifully slow.
 
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