Leveling up your character decreases your skill learning rate for all skills

[Maximum997]

I dont kbow why they cant make Lvl up from global xp bank. It is so obvious solution.

And what about skills like leadership or engeniring? They are impossible to lvl up in early game.

 

[Sepone]

In general i like the idea of learning by doing a lot (like in Kenshi). But the Bannerlord system just feels unbalanced.

You should be able to level every skill in equal time, maybe with an exception to late game skills like leadership. For example, if you declare your character Quartermaster Stewardship goes off like it's on speed, while Scouting proceeds at a snail's pace when you're the Scout.

And remove the progression slow-down when levelling up, please. It's just annoying. ?

 

[DarkManti]

I agree with it.

 

[Maximum997]

And i founded that scout has a "snawball" mechanic. You have low lvl at scouting and you cant see anything, it is hard to get any XP.
But with scouting grows you start to see more and scouting start to grow faster. It is kinda strange.

 

[JustinTime49]

Not going to lie, I like the idea of this leveling system, it just doesn't work well with the rest of the unfinished build is all.

I think it should work like this:

First off, take off the hero level as a factor for the multiplier.

If you skill up in a certain attribute category or reach a milestone, the learning capacity is slightly decreased in all OTHER categories EXCEPT the one that was leveled up in, with that increasing.

I think this would work fine since the skills are pretty relative to the attributes.

As an example: If you level up one-handed pretty high(100+), then if you were to pick up 2h or polearm skills, it would be easy to level them up as well.

This gives the idea that you can only be so much in a certain something, such as a strong fighter well versed in the art of weapons, or a charmer who can translate his smooth tongue onto fellow soldiers and merchants.

Someone tell me if I interpreted the information wrong though!

 

[JoRocky]

Just want to leave a
+1
here. Char lvl shouldnt lower learning rate.

 

[Flet]

Someone tell me if I interpreted the information wrong though!

The problem is it results in things like running around the map saving and reloading any time you accidentally gain a scouting level because you are not raising scout on your character, but intend to find a scouting companion, and so gaining scout levels does nothing for you but lower your potential in skills you do intend to raise. Repeat with the other skills that can be assigned to a companion: Not wanting to raise steward? Whoops! you accidentally looted another food type from that last battle and gained a few levels by having +moral from food! Maximum potential lowered!

It also discourages you from playing in tournaments because any weapon skill level gains in weapons you do not want to focus on are just hurting your potential.

This system creates the opposite effect from what it seemingly intended. Instead of 'using the skills you want to use', you spend more time focusing on 'not raising the skills you dont want to use'.

 

[drallim33]

I do not like the learn by doing in this game at all. I'm not opposed to that type of system in general, it works fine for elder scrolls type game but it just doesn't fit here.

If they continue down this path they will be stuck with a never ending problem with trying to get the rate of skill advancement right. How many sieges should you have to do to get engineer to a high level? There is no correct answer. It will be nearly impossible to get right.

This system also forces you to grind skills you don't use to reach higher levels. You get 1 focus point per level, and they increase the learning limit by 30. But it takes way more than 30 skill points to level up. So you will reach a point where you main skills are effectively capped (even if they are not near max), and in order to gain enough skill points to level you will have to grind up some unused skill that has room under the cap. This is a really bad design in my opinion.

I think simple skill point assignment would be much better. If you want to make an engineer character you can do it and be good at engineering from the start, you don't have to grind 200 siege battles to do it. You won't have to raid every village you see to get good at sneaking into castles.

Since you can't start out being good at anything like you could in warband, every character will feel the same. You won't be able to start with a high leadership or roguery or something and play that way from the start. You will end up having to game the system to try and make the character you want.

Warband had the learn by doing stuff, but only for weapon proficiency, where it makes sense. It was free of the degenerate incentives found in bannerlord. You were never encouraged to grind your crossbow proficiency in order to get points to increase your medicine skill, or anything silly like that. You could have a character that is natually good at a rarely used skill without degenerate grinding. Yes you could have high charisma without trading 1 denar to every noble you meet.

There was no grinding at all in warband, I hate grinding why the hell did they fill bannerlord with grinding incentives. just let me choose what my character will be good at, I don't want to have to reverse-engineer some overly complicated system to figure out what I need to grind to eventually be good at engineering.

This system is a weird mish mash of different incompatible systems and the result reflects that. If you want to do the "learn by doing" thing, you need to go all in on it. Separate out everything into as many skills as you can. Lumping raiding, bribes, leading bandit troops, sneaking into towns, and looting all under the "roguery" heading only makes sense for a skill point system. It makes no sense in a learn as you go system. Make each of those things a separate skill.

Then when the game needs to check how good you are at something, it can aggregate all the relevant skills. Let's say you're wielding a one handed spear with a shield, on horseback, in a forest. The game wants to determine your speed and maneuverability, so it checks your shield skill, shield on horseback skill, one handed spear skill, one handed spear on horseback skill, riding skill, forest navigation skill, and maybe more. Maybe you are good at using a shield but suck at doing it on horseback because you've never done it before. So you can still block things reasonably well but you can't maneuver your horse very well while doing it.

The only reason to limit the number of skills is if you have point assignment, so you don't lock players into builds that are too narrow. But if it's learn-as-you-go you have have tons of skills without any downside.

So the two systems (point assignment and learn-by-doing) are fundamentally incompatible, since the best version of either requires a completely different approach. Pick one approach and do it well, the current way is in between and does neither well.

 

[Carabus]

The new 1.1.0 beta promises better leveling for you and your companions. I have not tried it myself and I have no idea how well it works. Some report that it seems to work better.

It fixes slow skill leveling in general (by making higher levels require far less xp), and also fixes the incorrect display of learning rate factors.
However the main point of this thread - base learning rate for all skills decreasing with character level - is still exactly the same in the beta.

 

[Northcott]

I'd have no problem at all with the slow levelling/skill progression if characters started out at least moderately competent to begin with.

Instead, you get a background in which you may spend all your formative years focused on training towards one end, only to end up with skill roughly on par with looters -- who are supposed to be drunken, ragged, good-for-nothings. That's inane.

If you started out with your 'professional' skills floating somewhere around 80-90-ish, perhaps with a couple floating lower than that to flesh things out, that would make for a decent base. Then the slow skill progression makes a kind of sense, as you hone your way from being yet another person with some training in war/smithing/leadership/etc, to someone of singular ability and reputation. Or abandon your original career and try to build those lesser skills. But at least you'd have a base.

Part of the problem is that many tasks can't be accomplished with lower skill, and while players can win fights against the AI with lower skill, the game play just feels bad. Combat is clunky and unresponsive. It's not until you get to roughtly 90-100 in skill that it starts to feel smoother and responsive.

 

[artdayne]

It is not counter intuitive and it works as it is supposed to. If you're learning something new you are going to be picking up a lot of things quickly at the beginning but as you get closer to mastery of that thing the longer it takes to make small improvements.

The leveling system is also designed as such to promote concentration in a few key areas, they do not want your character to be a god at everything and frankly that's how I prefer it too because it provides replayability and I think that is simply good role playing design.

Your learning rate goes down with levels which means that especially when your learning rate is at the highest you should be focusing on the things you want to learn the most. You can keep your learning rate pretty high if you pump a lot of attribute points and learning points into a specific area.

 

[Amarilis]

if they created such a bad level system, then why am I not able to block my skills that I do not need? I have 33 lvl and already have 784 scouting skills. I don’t need it, it just shakes my level Which makes it very difficult for me to pump other skills.

I'm sorry I write through a translator.

 

[LEEKING2005]

It's doesn't make sense for this formula, is the level new aging feature?

 

[Carabus]

It is not counter intuitive and it works as it is supposed to. If you're learning something new you are going to be picking up a lot of things quickly at the beginning but as you get closer to mastery of that thing the longer it takes to make small improvements.

We already have skill caps and diminishing learning rate the closer you are to skill cap for this, doesn't need the global modifier.

The leveling system is also designed as such to promote concentration in a few key areas, they do not want your character to be a god at everything and frankly that's how I prefer it too because it provides replayability and I think that is simply good role playing design.

We already have focus points and attribute points to promote concentration in a few key areas, again doesn't need the global modifier.

Your learning rate goes down with levels which means that especially when your learning rate is at the highest you should be focusing on the things you want to learn the most. You can keep your learning rate pretty high if you pump a lot of attribute points and learning points into a specific area.

Your learning rate is highest at the very begining of the game, when your options are limited and you can't train many of the skills you would later want. At the begining you just beat looters or engage in some simple trading until you get up from the ground. Why should my learning rate in damn everything drop by 35% by the time I get to level 7 spending that time beating looters (aka one of the few things I am already able to do at this level) ?

 

[Sepone]

It is not counter intuitive and it works as it is supposed to. If you're learning something new you are going to be picking up a lot of things quickly at the beginning but as you get closer to mastery of that thing the longer it takes to make small improvements.

If you compare your character's skill rates to NPC's like other mercenaries and companions (background-wise your character is supposed to be one of them) you never reach "mastery" before skill caps kill your progression.

The leveling system is also designed as such to promote concentration in a few key areas, they do not want your character to be a god at everything and frankly that's how I prefer it too because it provides replayability and I think that is simply good role playing design.

Characters leading armies are supposed to have Social, Cunning and Intelligence skills next to their fighting abilities. Tactics, Leadership and Steward are good examples, and for those alone you need all of the three attributes. God forbid that you learn these and become a god at everything, to me that interpretation is the opposite of good role playing.

Your learning rate goes down with levels which means that especially when your learning rate is at the highest you should be focusing on the things you want to learn the most. You can keep your learning rate pretty high if you pump a lot of attribute points and learning points into a specific area.

Yes, that's the system at this time, and it's exactly what so many players are complaining about.

 

[Ethalis]

The leveling system is also designed as such to promote concentration in a few key areas, they do not want your character to be a god at everything and frankly that's how I prefer it too because it provides replayability and I think that is simply good role playing design.

You should read the other replies before writing your own. The problem with the levelling system is precisely that it actually does encourage you to be a jack of all trades and grind out all the skills you can, because if you only focus on your main skills you rapidly hit their caps and don't have enough AP and FP to increase those caps. Basically, you can get decent at swordfighting if you fight with a sword a lot, but if you want to actually become good at swordfighting, you have to smith, scout or charm the lords just so you can get enough SP to level up and invest some points into swordfighting. Basically, you have to either be good at everything, or be good at nothing.

Now, this thread is telling us that the learning rate decreases with your level. Consider those three points :

- To increase your main skills, you need focus points and attribute points
- To get FP and AP, you need to increase your other skills
- Everytime you increase a skill, your learning rate decreases

Don't you see the issue here ?

 

[Delinard]

I had unique companions for all 4 clan positions, and i haven't focused on smithing or ranged weapons, yet i still struggled to have high XP on my skills i was trying to focus on.

 

[Flet]

It is not counter intuitive and it works as it is supposed to. If you're learning something new you are going to be picking up a lot of things quickly at the beginning but as you get closer to mastery of that thing the longer it takes to make small improvements.

The leveling system is also designed as such to promote concentration in a few key areas, they do not want your character to be a god at everything and frankly that's how I prefer it too because it provides replayability and I think that is simply good role playing design.

Your learning rate goes down with levels which means that especially when your learning rate is at the highest you should be focusing on the things you want to learn the most. You can keep your learning rate pretty high if you pump a lot of attribute points and learning points into a specific area.

The problem is you cant shut off skill gains on skills you dont want to raise.
If you manage to get any of the party support skills you intend to use a companion to cover up a few levels before finding a companion for them because you accidentally spotted a hideout and gained a scouting level, or engaged in combat against looters and took a little damage and gained a surgery level then looted a few different food types from them and got a steward level, that is forever lowering your potential maximums. If you participate in a tournament and get 10 levels in some weapon you are not building your character around, that is forever lowering your potential maximums. Those few levels can then go on to be the difference between making a perk breakpoint or not in your main skill before the learning multiplier totally 0s out hard capping you - possibly hundreds of hours down the line in the save.

That is not a good design because it actively encourages you to avoid raising skills you dont want to focus on. So it encourages you to rush to find companions early while avoiding raising any skills and reloading if you accidentally do. It encourages you to avoid tournaments entirely. dont want to raise trade? You better not sell things at all because now in 1.1.0 you dont need to make a profit on things you have bought, just selling food looted from bandits will very slowly raise it.

When you come up with a character concept, building that character now requires constant obsession and checking to make sure you do not accidentally raise a skill you dont want.

It becomes even worse in the long run because even among skills you DO want to use, focus points and attributes only take you so far, you will be leveling your primary skills outside of learning bonus in 'the end', and in this case, maybe you only want the 200 riding perk, and want to dump all your remaining learning potential into getting your weapon as high as it can possibly go? What then?

The system as it currently is could be somewhat salvaged if you could just toggle off certain skills from ever raising. This would still leave a system were players would be pushed to try and snag some level 25 perks early on, becaus etheir player level pushes the 2 attribute non focused learning limit below 25 (it starts out at like 44 if you raise only that skill from level 1, meaning you could probably, for example, have 2 in vigor, and only intend to raise focus points in one weapon type, and get the other two up to 25 before they hardcap if you focused on it early on)

Is it good for a games system to encourage players to have to twist in such ways with so strict a playstyle to simply use the character progression system optimally? In a well designed game optimal use and intuitive use are the same.