It was a good read the main text. I haven't read the comments so I don't know if anyone else mentioned but I also would like to tell what I think about some things in-game.
- Lances and spears are too OP especially while mounted. You can still do a lot of damage without speed bonus (while standing still)
- Piercing do a lot more damage than swings. This may be because of the realism aspect of the game, therefore spears become too OP. Same thing applies for swords. If you can't deal damage to an enemy by swinging, try piercing, you'll see it deals more damage. But;
- There's hidden length of all of the one-handed weapons. Hits that shouldn't even touch the body deals damage (a lot, because it presumably touches the body where the most damage would be dealt by the weapon, i mean by the very end-point).
- I mentioned how Cav spears and lances are way too superior but I should also mention that while on ground with a spear you can't really feint or delay thus it makes a 1v1 really boring because it turns into only hit and block for a long period of time. (bot-fight) And somehow you fail to pierce the opponent very much everytime.
- Right swinging is almost as fast as left swing, so it also allows spamming without your opponent can punish you. (I don't know if its a bad thing, it may add some diversity to inf fight.) But when its added with hidden length of the weapons you can get a direct hit to your waist even while blocking.
- You have to block up with your shield, if the opponent swings above the head, otherwise it's going to be a half hit. But it also makes you vulnerable to other hits. (archer shots and right swing)
- In a 2v1 if you are using a shield and the opponents doesn't, they strangle you to spam. And there is almost nothing you can do against. Maybe its because I'm a bad player and I couldn't handle the footwork
but shield makes you slower while the opponents are faster. So running isn't an option.
- I don't know how but if your opponent is angled 90 degrees to you his right swing can hit you still, it doesn't bounce on the armor. In warband it is a direct bounce.
- Aforementioned things; shield bash is useless and kills the flow of the fight, kicks as well. Upon dismounting a cav you can see him getting up quickly but if a ground troop hit by a horse it suffers a lot (takes lots of time to get up)
- Arrows are slower compared to Warband (I don't actually want to compare Bannerlord to Warband but still I need to say) In close range archers are way too accurate and can deal damage (not as much damage as an archer would want), in mid range it depends on the experience and training whether it is accurate or not (and whether it deals damage or not) and long ranges they are basically useless (even if you hit a target it deals way too less damage).
- Headshots doesn't kill. C'mon if we are going to talk about realism tell me someone who fought in a battle with an arrow in his brain. You can say that Nord and Sarranid archers might not be able to kill with a headshot in Warband. But it was actually very much depended on where you shoot at the head of the opponent. If you would shoot the helmet then it wouldn't kill but if you put that arrow in the face it would.
- At least crossbows (whether light or not) must be able to kill when its a headshot. They are basically automatic machineguns of middle age.
- Arrows get faster until some point after it is fired, after some time it loses the energy thanks to air resistance and then gets slower and eventually hit the ground. But they don't get slower while descending vice versa they get faster because of the gravity. It seemed to me that in mid range they start to lose their energy even while descending. I might be wrong about it though.
There should be other things I left out, but can't remember now. So I'm going to leave my first skirmish match's video here, for a reason of course, you can see some of the things that I mentioned above.
0:29 tell me if its hidden length or am I too close to him. (im really asking .d)
fight starts at 0:54 you can see the inconsistency of the damages.
fight starts at 1:39 if I were the one with the shield I would be strangled into spam and probably wouldn't be able to run away. And also you can see that I don't get punished (by the game) while changing from right attack direction to left and continue spamming.
2:15 headshot with a light crossbow deals 67 damage in a close range. He had been hit earlier thats how i stole the kill.
Players I played against in the video were all newbies I guess and probably they were trying multiplayer out so don't know whether the fights in the video is reliable enough.