Looters = snipers now?

[pygc1]

the old days in warband when i could solo sea raiders with a new character are gone

 

[ltcem]

the old days in warband when i could solo sea raiders with a new character are gone

You can still do that. You just need to do some ultra long range shot and kill them one by one. The retreat mechanism in bannerlord is even easier and forgiving than warband, given that you can outrun your enemy.

 

[Jonabob87]

I'm more bothered by how often I lose tier 2-3 troops in melee combat with looters. Their range doesn't really bother me, shield wall > advance.

 

[Brave_Lung]

I just wanted to make a Thread about it!

What about Sea Riders? They are mode deadly than elite troops!!! I will make a Thread about that!!! Maybe they see it and balance it on the next patch!!

 

[Brave_Lung]

You can still do that. You just need to do some ultra long range shot and kill them one by one. The retreat mechanism in bannerlord is even easier and forgiving than warband, given that you can outrun your enemy.

Yes, so we all have to play with the bow right? So much for the versatility. The game forces you to play one single weapon!!!

 

[Herbiie]

The looters seem all to be international level cricket players, throwing rocks hard enough to kill from miles away. 100% agree, rocks need to be shorter ranged and less accurate!

Unless these looters sit around their camps training the art of throwing rocks, and are actually the finest rock throwers in Calradia...

 

[World's Coolest Old Guy]

Aye, they throw those rocks doubla as far and precise as your blind archers can shoot their bows.
NPC-ranged behavior is horrible.
Seems to be completly driven by ridiculus accuracy bonus for hostiles.
Otherwise i can't explain why your own ranged troops sucks while the hostile ones are walking machine guns.

I guess a professionpoint-related-system like in Warband that was transparent and viable for NPCs and Players alike
was not fancy enough.

They're not though.

 

[Herbiie]

They're not though.

Ok, so firstly you're not fighting looters if they're shooting arrows, so this isn't a test of looters throwing stones.

Secondly, edit videos pls.

Thirdly, you're doing everything you can to avoid them.

Yes, if you circle around them on a horse they will miss. The point is that they are better than your own troops in ranged. We're talking about looters. Desperate men in rags who barely have edged weapons. I shouldn't have to pussyfoot around them at all, and certainly not fear rocks being thrown at me. Where are they getting these massive rocks from? How strong are they to throw these massive rocks dozens of yards with enough to power to hurt me through my armour??

 

[World's Coolest Old Guy]

Ok, so firstly you're not fighting looters if they're shooting arrows, so this isn't a test of looters throwing stones.

Secondly, edit videos pls.

Thirdly, you're doing everything you can to avoid them.

Yes, if you circle around them on a horse they will miss. The point is that they are better than your own troops in ranged. We're talking about looters. Desperate men in rags who barely have edged weapons. I shouldn't have to pussyfoot around them at all, and certainly not fear rocks being thrown at me. Where are they getting these massive rocks from? How strong are they to throw these massive rocks dozens of yards with enough to power to hurt me through my armour??

Ugh, fine, I'll do another test (I've been doing test videos all damn day...) But the guy said "Otherwise i can't explain why your own ranged troops sucks while the hostile ones are walking machine guns." Sounded to me like this would apply to all hostile ranged troops, and Forest Bandits are higher tier.

Also, edit in what way? Too much editing and it looks like I'm cherrypicking. I'm not out to impress anyone, I'd rather show the footage as-is.

 

[Herbiie]

Ugh, fine, I'll do another test (I've been doing test videos all damn day...) But the guy said "Otherwise i can't explain why your own ranged troops sucks while the hostile ones are walking machine guns." Sounded to me like this would apply to all hostile ranged troops, and Forest Bandits are higher tier.

I feel like you'd still miss the point. Men in rags without real weapons should not pose the threat that they currently do in Bannerlord.

 

[World's Coolest Old Guy]

I feel like you'd still miss the point. Men in rags without real weapons should not pose the threat that they currently do in Bannerlord.

And why not? They're human beings, same as you and yours. Armor improves your odds of survival, it doesn't make you invincible. By that logic, common criminals shouldn't pose a threat to cops when they go to serve a warrant.

 

[Herbiie]

And why not? They're human beings, same as you and yours. Armor improves your odds of survival, it doesn't make you invincible. By that logic, common criminals shouldn't pose a threat to cops when they go to serve a warrant.

They can pose a threat, but not the threat they currently pose.

There are two basic arguments against the way in which looters currently appear in Bannerlord:

1- Realism
The accuracy and power with which looters throw an almost inexhaustible supply of rocks is ridiculous. Yes, a thrown rock to an unprotected noggin can be fatal even. But such a throw will be incredibly lucky. Throwing a rock at a moving target will almost never result in a hit. I would say go outside and try it, but obviously - don't go outside, and don't throw rocks at people. But as human beings we are not good at judging the lead we need to throw things, in particular heavy items that won't be travelling as quickly as we think. Also, against an armoured target a rock thrown from the same level will not cause any damage whatsoever. It shouldn't just improve your 'odds of survival' - it should eliminate the threat posed by rocks. Finally, looters seem to have backpacks full of rocks! Volley after stoney volley crash against my crossbowmen! If they're picking them up - then where are my rocks? Why doesn't everyone have rocks? It's just silly.

2- Gameplay
Looters are early game enemies. When you've painstakingly got your first two tier 2 troops to have them go down to rocks before they can even get into the fight is silly. Getting mobbed by a gang of looters - fine, but just getting hit as they run towards the enemy - not fine. Looters should be an absolute breeze for trained troops to mow through, with more difficult bandits later on.

 

[HalfTauter]

Does ranged proficiency increase accuracy now? It seems like maybe only perks have an effect, making looters with stones be equally skilled as a master thrower.

Yes, it's just like in Warband where proficiency increased the weapon skills, such as accuracy and damage. I haven't looked at the throwing proficiency, but for example, the archery proficiency gives a damage and accuracy boost. You can check this at the 'i' symbol at the skills. It gives like 0.1% boost to accuracy and damage per 1 point proficiency, thus a 150 proficiency is 10 percent more accurate than a 50 proficiency thrower.

I'm unsure if proficiency for archery/throwing increases the speed and or 'deadlock duration', as it did in warband.

So perks are not the only accuracy adders.

 

[Narduiran]

Can confirm, looters are able to defeat lance-wielding mounted troops by continuously stunning them from rocks. Basically, you can't hit them because the closer you get, the more you get stunned out of your attacks.

 

[Midnitewolf]

I think the archers not firing thing is a bug because sometimes they do fire and other times they don't. Also using the fire command doesn't fix the issue. I can see my archers change stance and weapons but they still don't fire. Time of day doesn't matter either. Lastly, horse archers aren't affected by the bug, they fire like they should.

 

[World's Coolest Old Guy]

Yes, if you circle around them on a horse they will miss. The point is that they are better than your own troops in ranged. We're talking about looters. Desperate men in rags who barely have edged weapons. I shouldn't have to pussyfoot around them at all, and certainly not fear rocks being thrown at me.

No.

Can confirm, looters are able to defeat lance-wielding mounted troops by continuously stunning them from rocks. Basically, you can't hit them because the closer you get, the more you get stunned out of your attacks.

Nope.

 

[Herbiie]

No.








Nope.

So, the whole point is that they are an early game threat that it is too high.

Your archers outnumbering the looters and being up to tier 6 kinda isn't testing what we've said.

You can post as many videos showing other things as you want, doesn't change anything...

 

[World's Coolest Old Guy]

So, the whole point is that they are an early game threat that it is too high.

Your archers outnumbering the looters and being up to tier 6 kinda isn't testing what we've said.

You can post as many videos showing other things as you want, doesn't change anything...

Respectfully, could this community please stop moving the goalposts? It's getting exhausting doing new videos under new conditions. Before you were complaining that they were a threat to high-tier troops and outperformed trained archers, and now you're saying that taking trained archers doesn't prove anything and that the problem is how big an early game threat they are. Massive sigh, give me another few minutes and I'll test with early game forces.

Also, RE: rocks...

The simplest projectile [for a sling] was a stone, preferably well-rounded. Suitable ammunition is frequently from a river. The size of the projectiles can vary dramatically, from pebbles massing no more than 50 grams (1.8 oz) to fist-sized stones massing 500 grams (18 oz) or more.

Well, there are a few sources that suggest that slings were exceptionally dangerous weapons in that period, whether you were armoured or not. Manfred Korfmann in his article The Sling as a Weapon (which unfortunately I can't find a way to get to without using my University library to access databases that require accounts) has a few things to say about them that suggest they are a very deadly weapon. For him and other sources, I'll just recount the things about them that talks about how damaging they were, not neat things like their range compared to bows or whatever.
Korfmann writes that missiles could reach speeds of 100kmph if they weighed 25 grams or more, which is an intimidating velocity to be sure and would do a lot of damage on impact, the equivalent of a golf ball falling from a 7 story building. Vegetius (who was a 4th century AD Roman military author), writes that biconical (oval shaped) missiles were more deadly than arrows to a man in leather armour. Even if the missile could not penetrate the armour of their targets, Vegetius writes that they were capable of inflicting fatal internal injuries. Vegetius was writing at the height of the Roman Empire, so clearly slings would have been capable of killing men in armour for the entirety of the period Rome 2 is set. In addition to this, Korfmann points to De Medicina, a Roman medical text so influencial that it was used up to the 18th century. It contains instructions for extracting stone and lead bullets from the bodies of soldiers.
This next bit is cool; Korfmann goes on to discuss the use of slings against Conquistadors many centuries later in Peru. "Their chief weapon," wrote one Spanish observer, "is the sling. With it they throw a large stone with such force that it could kill a horse. Its effect is indeed only slightly less than that of [a Spanish firearm]." That, I think, says a lot about the killing power of the sling. Also this: "I have seen how a stone flung from a sling over a distance of 30 paces broke in two a sword that a man was holding in his hand."
So, to answer your question, slings were more than capable at killing an armour wearing man, though obviously armour was not incapable of providing protection (Greek historian Thucydides noted that when invaders attacked Epirus, they were so beset by sling fire that "it was not possible for [the invaders] to stir without armour"), and whilst I'd tend towards seeing the sling in Rome 2 as slightly overpowered (this was before they fixed testudos and I lost entire cohorts in under a minute), from a historical perspective, yes, slings could kill men wearing armour, and were a very, very dangerous weapon.

And slings weren't necessarily used for power, but distance.

The sling essentially works by extending the length of a human arm, thus allowing stones to be thrown much farther than they could be by hand.

Putting all this together, surprisingly light stones can be surprisingly deadly, even to men in armor. Particularly early medieval armor, which doesn't yet utilize doming and deflection angles. From a sling, these stones could reach up to 100 KPH if they weighed 25 grams (0.05 pounds) or more. That's about 60 MPH. Considering a baseball has a mass of 149 grams and pitchers can barehand those at speeds of up to 100 MPH... You're looking at a surprisingly deadly weapon.

What I'm saying is that Bannerlord has upped the realism factor. These aren't your granddaddy's (... great-grandson's?) looters. These are guys slinging solid rocks at your head. If you went up against a bunch of guys with rocks in real life, how would you approach it? Would you charge them and expect to take negligible damage? I wouldn't.

Anyway, running your test, gimme a bit.

Edit: Done, but I'm starving. I'll get it uploading and link it after dinner.

 

[Herbiie]

They would go much further because they were being thrown more powerfully. Are you seriously comparing the damage done by a thrown rock to a slingshot?????

I haven't moved any goalposts. You pitted 24 archers against a few looters, with your guys being mostly quite high teir.

They're not slinging rocks anywhere. They are throwing rocks, by hand. If I went up against a bunch of guys with rocks in real life and I was in chainmail backed up by a half dozen dudes with spears, yes I'd damn well cahrge them... becuase they are throwing rocks, not using slingshots.

Saying that throwing rocks is in any way comparable to slingshots is simply silly. And baseball pitchers? Are you serious? So these looters are training for weeks on end to get a perfect throwing arm?

Go outside right now and throw a rock. See if you can get it up to 100mph

My points on realism, in bullet point form:
- They are too powerful and do too much damage to armour
- They are too accurate for something being thrown by hand
- They are carrying too many

*edit*

Also 25g... you're talking about throwing a bloody pebble. Oh no I am terrified.

 

[Ghostwish]

No.








Nope.

seriously ? your testing 70 elite troops against 10 looters ?
and cav 27 vs 13 ?

what do you want to proof with this?