Medicine most OP skill in the game

[diehold]

No, just stay independent (and fiefless) while you do your intial farming. In principle you can just fight, more or less, everything and everyone that moves; though, you probably still want to be able to dump some loot.

Okay that's kinda what I thought. To be honest it's no different from merc'ing except you don't get paid to f*** up nobles while you build strength. Although it does add some more challenge to the gameplay I don't see how it's any faster at getting to endgame.

And I'm not trying to be a d*** I'm totally open to new smart ideas. I think we both have very similar styles of how we like to play the game from what you describe. We just have different preferences. I used to to do a build where I focused on endurance and social but lately after they fixed medicine I tweaked that build to give me the best of all of it.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Okay that's kinda what I thought. To be honest it's no different from merc'ing except you don't get paid to f*** up nobles while you build strength. Although it does add some more challenge to the gameplay I don't see how it's any faster at getting to endgame.

Its not really more challenging, you just get more opportunities to fight.

Yes, you do loose out on the merc payment. However, with the change to loot you generally get more high value items. So, sell off the low value stuff and leave the high value items for some time in the future where you get a chance to sell it off. The key is that you can stay alot longer in the field. So, more enemies and less time spend not fighting.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

Hell, if you want to talk OP perk combos, Roguery 150 "Partners in Crime" combined with Leadership 150 "Veteran's Respect" is a strong contender. Basically an endless supply of free noble troops. Once you get those perks you never have to visit another village again

 

[diehold]

Its not really more challenging, you just get more opportunities to fight.

Yes, you do loose out on the merc payment. However, with the change to loot you generally get more high value items. So, sell off the low value stuff and leave the high value items for some time in the future where you get a chance to sell it off. The key is that you can stay alot longer in the field. So, more enemies and less time spend not fighting.

It's more challenging cause of being fully independent and possibly not being able to sell loot in certain towns. That's a fair point about staying longer in the field for more battles. I like getting clan tiers quick but at the same time I enjoy exciting outnumbered battles where I have a chance to lose. Once you get really good at this game it's hard to find new ways to enjoy it.

Hell, if you want to talk OP perk combos, Roguery 150 "Partners in Crime" combined with Leadership 150 "Veteran's Respect" is a strong contender. Basically an endless supply of free noble troops. Once you get those perks you never have to visit another village again

I'll be honest I've never dabbled much in Roguery with Firebrand and Veterans Respect recruiting noble troops is very easy for me. But I should try it sometime.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Hell, if you want to talk OP perk combos, Roguery 150 "Partners in Crime" combined with Leadership 150 "Veteran's Respect" is a strong contender. Basically an endless supply of free noble troops. Once you get those perks you never have to visit another village again

blasphemy, noble troops you can get aplenty through forced recruitment and those bandits are way to valuable to use for levelling roguery!

 

[Bluko88]

Max Intelligence/Medicine is hands down the most OP skill in the game currently. With Medicine maxed out you can gobble up armies by yourself without needing to create an army. It's also one of the best ways to get max renown gain. And if you enjoy siege defenses you can basically get winnable siege defenses on demand whenever you want one against the strongest armies in the game. Please tell me I'm wrong. I welcome it.

Suppose so for battles, really same effect is playing Easy/Very Easy

But I hate leveling medicine, or at least it was atrocious to level up in the pre1.8 era. Does food variety or something help level Medicine now?

Not going to club all my troops or start starving them so I can level up Medicine like was common before. Again as far as I know hasn't changed, though Doctor's Oath has always been important as I recall for leveling Medicine regardless.

It's nice, but you can be 3/4 done with the game by the time you get to 275, so it doesn't matter anymore.

This too

I mean it's nice you get these big rewards for reaching the end of a skill tree, but by the time you reach that skill level you'll likely be on easy street anyways from tons of cash + big party.

It'd be far more sensible if a Level 25, 50, 100 perk say granted extra HP. Like every 10 skill granted your troops gained an extra 1 hitpoint. So say it was a Level 50 perk that means at 100 you'd have a decent extra 5 HP for troops, which most players could benefit from without having to "power game" as it were. Then at level 300 you'd still have a substantial extra 25 HP for troops. But you benefit from it earlier in the game when you realistically need it - or would a hire a Surgeon for your party. Could still have the final 300 perk grant an extra 5-10 HP just to make it worth the grind.

Same deal for Athletics, like I got 300ish Athletics on my Battanian footman character and the 50 extra hitpoints is great... but I really don't need it when I got 50+ Armor all around. Not that being able to take extra hits isn't nice, just be a lot more helpful earlier in the game when I was trying to level up Athletics to begin with.

Hell, if you want to talk OP perk combos, Roguery 150 "Partners in Crime" combined with Leadership 150 "Veteran's Respect" is a strong contender. Basically an endless supply of free noble troops. Once you get those perks you never have to visit another village again

Another +1

Yeah I'd say that this is more broken, literal free troops everywhere you go. Damn near invincible on the campaign map since if you need more troops just hit up one of the blobs of Bandits/Looters. So stupid you just roll up to one of those 100 man Looter bands and they all join; there you go free army! Yet another reason why they should cap the Looter/Bandit party size to say 30-50 troops at the most.

I mean Level 275 Medicine perk is stupidly powerful, but 98% of players will never ever get there - so what does it matter really?


I'd rather time and effort be spent on making useless perks like Level 50 Swift Strike actually good for something. Game would be better having 1/3rd the current perks and you know actually have them provide a real tangible benefit to the PC/NPC with it, rather then all underwhelming if not entirely useless ones.

Surprised they nerfed Steward 275 perk, but that's always been easy to get.

 

[diehold]

Suppose so for battles, really same effect is playing Easy/Very Easy

But I hate leveling medicine, or at least it was atrocious to level up in the pre1.8 era. Does food variety or something help level Medicine now?

Not going to club all my troops or start starving them so I can level up Medicine like was common before. Again as far as I know hasn't changed, though Doctor's Oath has always been important as I recall for leveling Medicine regardless.


This too

I mean it's nice you get these big rewards for reaching the end of a skill tree, but by the time you reach that skill level you'll likely be on easy street anyways from tons of cash + big party.

It'd be far more sensible if a Level 25, 50, 100 perk say granted extra HP. Like every 10 skill granted your troops gained an extra 1 hitpoint. So say it was a Level 50 perk that means at 100 you'd have a decent extra 5 HP for troops, which most players could benefit from without having to "power game" as it were. Then at level 300 you'd still have a substantial extra 25 HP for troops. But you benefit from it earlier in the game when you realistically need it - or would a hire a Surgeon for your party. Could still have the final 300 perk grant an extra 5-10 HP just to make it worth the grind.

Same deal for Athletics, like I got 300ish Athletics on my Battanian footman character and the 50 extra hitpoints is great... but I really don't need it when I got 50+ Armor all around. Not that being able to take extra hits isn't nice, just be a lot more helpful earlier in the game when I was trying to level up Athletics to begin with.


Another +1

Yeah I'd say that this is more broken, literal free troops everywhere you go. Damn near invincible on the campaign map since if you need more troops just hit up one of the blobs of Bandits/Looters. So stupid you just roll up to one of those 100 man Looter bands and they all join; there you go free army! Yet another reason why they should cap the Looter/Bandit party size to say 30-50 troops at the most.

I mean Level 275 Medicine perk is stupidly powerful, but 98% of players will never ever get there - so what does it matter really?


I'd rather time and effort be spent on making useless perks like Level 50 Swift Strike actually good for something. Game would be better having 1/3rd the current perks and you know actually have them provide a real tangible benefit to the PC/NPC with it, rather then all underwhelming if not entirely useless ones.

Surprised they nerfed Steward 275 perk, but that's always been easy to get.

Let's be honest bannerlord difficulty isn't very difficult in general regardless of powerful perks.

Leveling medicine has improved since 1.8 they increased experience gains for higher tier troops when they die/injured. It has become a very viable build now. But you should max it out fully early.

Medicine is ridiculously powerful if it fits your playstyle. If you use Khan's Guard in the early game I'd understand why it wouldn't be worth it to loose them cause of the financial investment but other high tier troops are very easy and not costly to replace. And the healing rate is very fast with perks so that is a non issue.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Roguery 150 "Partners in Crime"

One things about this one that sucks a lot is that it won't work if the bandits have a power advantage. Meaning if you ditch your party in a garrison and set out to recruit a pile of steppe bandits too fast to catch with a bigger party...uh oh they won't join. And as we know bandits often join you if you're more powerful anyways, so this perk is a let down.

 

[Bluko88]

Let's be honest bannerlord difficulty isn't very difficult in general regardless of powerful perks.

Leveling medicine has improved since 1.8 they increased experience gains for higher tier troops when they die/injured. It has become a very viable build now. But you should max it out fully early.

Medicine is ridiculously powerful if it fits your playstyle. If you use Khan's Guard in the early game I'd understand why it wouldn't be worth it to loose them cause of the financial investment but other high tier troops are very easy and not costly to replace. And the healing rate is very fast with perks so that is a non issue.

I'd say Bannerlord is fairly difficult starting out, especially if you never played a Mount & Blade game before. There's a lot you need to be aware of, which is easy for those with a lot playtime to take for granted.

Of course that's the problem. There's a lot of "things" in Bannerlord, but they are all quiet shallow. Sometimes broken, and sometimes useless. Wide as an ocean, but no deeper then the kiddie pool.


Truthfully once you have the competency to play on "Realistic"/form a Kingdom - it's basically up to you to make things easier/harder. It's very difficult to add-in genuine difficulty that effect all playstyles. You could maybe do some outside invasion thing, but how does how that hamper a neutral mercenary or trader? Really there needs to be better checks and balances in-game. i.e. when a Kingdom starts getting too big it should be prone to split apart in a civil war. IMO it should be very difficult to conquer the entire map as one Kingdom, but in Bannerlord it basically just gets to a point of cruise control.

One things about this one that sucks a lot is that it won't work if the bandits have a power advantage. Meaning if you ditch your party in a garrison and set out to recruit a pile of steppe bandits too fast to catch with a bigger party...uh oh they won't join. And as we know bandits often join you if you're more powerful anyways, so this perk is a let down.

Oh they changed that? Pretty sure it wasn't like that before. But I hardly ever run solo, except maybe very beginning of game so maybe it was never applicable...

Still think it's useful for Bandit troops, Looters are the only hostile parties I can recall that actually surrender.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Oh they changed that? Pretty sure it wasn't like that before. But I hardly ever run solo, except maybe very beginning of game so maybe it was never applicable...

Well that was in January and they have put nothing in the patch notes about it on any update and my report post still has it as in progress we informed the devs blah blah blah. I'm not building up a useless skill a second time to see if it accidently got fixed.

Still think it's useful for Bandit troops, Looters are the only hostile parties I can recall that actually surrender.

I guarantee you all types of bandits will surrender without the perk, you just need a power advantage and they roll for it. When you have a small army (or large party) you can often grab up many bandit parties (and their prisoners). Steppe bandits can be an issue because having enough power advantage usually means you're too slow to catch them. Too bad because there's tunz of them always.

 

[Antaeus]

Steppe bandits can be an issue because having enough power advantage usually means you're too slow to catch them. Too bad because there's tunz of them always.

Can't be bothered any more chasing steppe bandits to try to corner them... half an hour clearing hideouts will net you plenty of prisoners. So periodically I turn Kuzait sheriff.

Onto the thread... I agree an OP perk is pointless if it takes you till you're already bored with your playthrough to obtain. I find Charm 275 to be the most OP. You can get there really early in the game by freeing captives lords and from then on it doesn't really matter what policies come up, or what votes or how large you want your armies. You're pulling influence hand over foot.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

You're pulling influence hand over foot.

Yes, it is good, but it's also irrelevant in recent version because your clan parties get a massive amount of influence for putting prisoners in dungeons, which they do and they can overfill them (you cannot though). AI parties get like 10X more influence then the player will for donating prisoners. And of course they will always have tunz of prisoners because of endless army battles because the AI has endless influence from donating their own endless prisoners
Charm has a lot of other good perks too of course.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Yes, it is good, but it's also irrelevant in recent version because your clan parties get a massive amount of influence for putting prisoners in dungeons, which they do and they can overfill them (you cannot though). AI parties get like 10X more influence then the player will for donating prisoners. And of course they will always have tunz of prisoners because of endless army battles because the AI has endless influence from donating their own endless prisoners
Charm has a lot of other good perks too of course.

I agree that the last perk in the charm tree is a bit overrated. But charm, in general, is really strong (and quick to level).

The last perk does have one thing going for it, it allow you to build up a bit of influence before becoming a vassal.

 

[five bucks]

I think you're getting pushback on your opinion because when you say something's OP around here, it winds up getting nerfed into the dirt. So while I agree with you that the Minister of Health perk is very powerful and one of the best perks in the game, its not overpowered. Its just powerful enough for the time it takes to earn it.

This.

Even if it does get nerfed the player is so OP regardless. Honestly I'm surprised they nerfed steward and smithing final perks over medicine.

The player isn't OP, it takes so long to grind your way through the game. What's OP are some of the available exploits.

 

[diehold]

This.

The player isn't OP, it takes so long to grind your way through the game. What's OP are some of the available exploits.

Except all the pushback was for completely different reasons than that.

Two things can be true at once. The play is OP and the game can be grindy. You don't need to use the exploits to dominate this game.

I'd say Bannerlord is fairly difficult starting out, especially if you never played a Mount & Blade game before. There's a lot you need to be aware of, which is easy for those with a lot playtime to take for granted.

Of course that's the problem. There's a lot of "things" in Bannerlord, but they are all quiet shallow. Sometimes broken, and sometimes useless. Wide as an ocean, but no deeper then the kiddie pool.


Truthfully once you have the competency to play on "Realistic"/form a Kingdom - it's basically up to you to make things easier/harder. It's very difficult to add-in genuine difficulty that effect all playstyles. You could maybe do some outside invasion thing, but how does how that hamper a neutral mercenary or trader? Really there needs to be better checks and balances in-game. i.e. when a Kingdom starts getting too big it should be prone to split apart in a civil war. IMO it should be very difficult to conquer the entire map as one Kingdom, but in Bannerlord it basically just gets to a point of cruise control.


Oh they changed that? Pretty sure it wasn't like that before. But I hardly ever run solo, except maybe very beginning of game so maybe it was never applicable...

Still think it's useful for Bandit troops, Looters are the only hostile parties I can recall that actually surrender.

That doesn't say much about bannerlord difficulty. Any game is a challenge on hard difficulty if you never played the game before. The issue is for any experienced player the game doesn't offer much of a challenge on bannerlord difficulty just a grindy nuisance. Unlike other games out there.

The only way to make it challenging atm is to handicap yourself.

There are ways you could make the game challenging for everyone but that mean having a real bannerlord difficulty level for experienced players. New players could use lower difficulty levels if its too challenging.

And I completely agree that conquering the map is way too easy in this game. That is the reason a lot people never finish a game because once you reach a certain point the snowball takes all the fun out of the game and it just into mopping up. The player is too strong and the AI is too too weak.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

There are ways you could make the game challenging for everyone but that mean having a real bannerlord difficulty level for experienced players. New players could use lower difficulty levels if its too challenging.

You already have different difficulty options available to you, despite that, you still see plenty of posts complaining that, this or that, is too difficult.

"Why cant I ride straight into the enemy with a big twohander without getting killed by archers! Buff armor, nerf archers!!"

If people dont use the available options to tailor the game to their own preferences, it isnt really going to help anything anyway. Honestly, adding another, harder, difficulty level would probably just be used as an excuse to dial up the amount of cheese we use. Just make your own difficulty.

 

[diehold]

You already have different difficulty options available to you, despite that, you still see plenty of posts complaining that, this or that, is too difficult.

"Why cant I ride straight into the enemy with a big twohander without getting killed by archers! Buff armor, nerf archers!!"

If people dont use the available options to tailor the game to their own preferences, it isnt really going to help anything anyway. Honestly, adding another, harder, difficulty level would probably just be used as an excuse to dial up the amount of cheese we use. Just make your own difficulty.

If your experienced and the only options available are taking options off the table. That's not how it should work. It should be difficult with all available options. If you have to chop off one your legs to do it that kinda defeats the purpose.

Except you don't even need to cheese the game to win decisively. That argument doesn't hold water. This game can be beaten easily on just sheer numbers of random troops alone. It doesn't matter if you use noble units or not. You don't need exploits to win either. The AI is incredibly bad. AI nobles attributes and skills are pathetic. Tactics reduces the AI game to just arbitrary algorithms.

 

[JunKeteer]

There's only so much player-made handicap that can be done just to get some semblance of challenge from the game, especially in a game where there is next to content to do that truly supports any alternative/'handicap' playthroughs besides growing/sustaining a large party and join a war/faction.

Caravans require no management/gameplay, workshops don't either; not to mention needing clan tier anyways to increase the limited cap allowed for both. Smithing only, I can't see that being 'good' gameplay alternative (there's tons of better games to do that). Bandit/outlaw route nonexistent. Trader only doesn't offer much incentive to spend your ridiculous wealth on. Small/companion party only - once you get past balancing their wage cost, all you really can do is fight the same looters/bandits or bandit hideouts. Can go on and on.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

If your experienced and the only options available are taking options off the table. That's not how it should work. It should be difficult with all available options. If you have to chop off one your legs to do it that kinda defeats the purpose.

Except you don't even need to cheese the game to win decisively. That argument doesn't hold water. This game can be beaten easily on just sheer numbers of random troops alone. It doesn't matter if you use noble units or not. You don't need exploits to win either. The AI is incredibly bad. AI nobles attributes and skills are pathetic. Tactics reduces the AI game to just arbitrary algorithms.

Warband wasnt challenging either, it was still popular.

The problem is that no-one can come up with anyway to actually make the game more challenging; without resorting to taking away all options from the player. So, I would not except any changes, you gotta learn to live with it.

 

[diehold]

Warband wasnt challenging either, it was still popular.

The problem is that no-one can come up with anyway to actually make the game more challenging; without resorting to taking away all options from the player. So, I would not except any changes, you gotta learn to live with it.

What does that have to do it with anything? You're reaching there. You comment as if you're the only one who can have valid complaints.

The problem is that there are ways but a lot of features of bannerlord conflicts with itself so it would require a thought out rework. Which is unlikely. I'm living with it the same way you are by finding my own work arounds. That still doesn't change the fact that it lacks challenge for experienced players. But thank you for finally agreeing I know it must of been difficult for you pride to admit.