I think this is because of different spear hitboxes from Warband. In Warband you could essentially weave the spear around and hit people even at close range, but in Bannerlord it is only on the tip of the spear. So it disagrees entirely with our muscle memory of playing with polearms in Warband, that naturally creates problems. Another thing is that because mobility and feinting opportunities and kicks (opportunities to keep the opponent at bay and stop them from rushing you) are in a bad spot and don't really work as they are supposed to, in the case of feinting it's just not really there, it becomes much harder to duel with spears. Because in real life the best way to combat a spear is to get past the tip of the spear, in Bannerlord the same applies except the spear user has no mobility and no tools at their disposal to stop the enemy from just closing in.
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MP Multiplayer Feedback from the Competitive Community.
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I think this is because of different spear hitboxes from Warband. In Warband you could essentially weave the spear around and hit people even at close range, but in Bannerlord it is only on the tip of the spear. So it disagrees entirely with our muscle memory of playing with polearms in Warband, that naturally creates problems. Another thing is that because mobility and feinting opportunities and kicks (opportunities to keep the opponent at bay and stop them from rushing you) are in a bad spot and don't really work as they are supposed to, in the case of feinting it's just not really there, it becomes much harder to duel with spears. Because in real life the best way to combat a spear is to get past the tip of the spear, in Bannerlord the same applies except the spear user has no mobility and no tools at their disposal to stop the enemy from just closing in.
So I disagree with a lot of what OP says. Granted I'm not playing in competitive custom lobbies or whatever you guys are doing, I'm just playing skirmish.
I've played a few thousand hours of warband prior to bannerlord.
1) "Shield Bash seems to do nothing" I've really enjoyed using the shield bash as spear infantry, great to reestablish distance.
2) "Archers are too accurate" I've noticed a huge difference here over Warband, most of which I've attributed to better networking. In Warband, if you had 90 ping, your arrows had a massive delay before being fired, here that delay doesn't seem to exist even on 100+ ping, resulting in many more competitive archers. "-don't like how there's barely an arrow drop" Most of the maps in skirmish don't have long sight lines that result in a lot of arrow drop.
3) Most of the other problems described speak to "It's not warband pvp" and it's not and it shouldn't be.
4)Chambers are fine and dandy, but being able to chamber every swing consistently, leads to people not swinging. I agree that chambers should be overall be made easier, but still maintain a high amount of risk when attempting.
5)"Movement feels floaty" Movement to me feels way more fluid than Warband, aside from virtually no jump stun on landing, I have no complaints about it.
6) "blocking will be good once you can block 2 opponents" What, no. You can already block 2 opponents, it mostly comes down to swing timing from the 2 which is how it should be. If they both swing at the same time in different directions you're not blocking **** and you shouldn't be able to unless you have a shield.
7)" classes and perks are unbalanced (who would play a peasant with bad weapons and armor?) " I see reasons to do it, round 1 in skirmish you start with 300 gold, if you pick a Peasant for 3 lives you get an extra re-spawn.
" throwing weapons do too much damage " Disagree completely. 3-4 javelins to kill an armored opponent in skirmish (without headshots) is fine and maybe not enough damage. Throwing axes seem to do a lot though.
9) "handling cav still awful feels like ice-skating " ARE YOU INSANE? Cavalry to me has felt way better than Warband.
And now all the stuff we're complaining was in Warband, but is different in Bannerlord and is irrelevant. Different games.
bump-stabs need to be more easy to do
infantry spears need to be shorter
bump couching is too easy needs to be looked into
The 3rd person cross hair placement is really counter intuitive, and should be made similar to how warband's worked.
TL;DR
I hope they don't change most of the core aspects of pvp right now.
I would love to see more customization. But we'll all probably only be playing mods for pvp a month from now so who cares.
I've played a few thousand hours of warband prior to bannerlord.
1) "Shield Bash seems to do nothing" I've really enjoyed using the shield bash as spear infantry, great to reestablish distance.
2) "Archers are too accurate" I've noticed a huge difference here over Warband, most of which I've attributed to better networking. In Warband, if you had 90 ping, your arrows had a massive delay before being fired, here that delay doesn't seem to exist even on 100+ ping, resulting in many more competitive archers. "-don't like how there's barely an arrow drop" Most of the maps in skirmish don't have long sight lines that result in a lot of arrow drop.
3) Most of the other problems described speak to "It's not warband pvp" and it's not and it shouldn't be.
4)Chambers are fine and dandy, but being able to chamber every swing consistently, leads to people not swinging. I agree that chambers should be overall be made easier, but still maintain a high amount of risk when attempting.
5)"Movement feels floaty" Movement to me feels way more fluid than Warband, aside from virtually no jump stun on landing, I have no complaints about it.
6) "blocking will be good once you can block 2 opponents" What, no. You can already block 2 opponents, it mostly comes down to swing timing from the 2 which is how it should be. If they both swing at the same time in different directions you're not blocking **** and you shouldn't be able to unless you have a shield.
7)" classes and perks are unbalanced (who would play a peasant with bad weapons and armor?) " I see reasons to do it, round 1 in skirmish you start with 300 gold, if you pick a Peasant for 3 lives you get an extra re-spawn.
" throwing weapons do too much damage " Disagree completely. 3-4 javelins to kill an armored opponent in skirmish (without headshots) is fine and maybe not enough damage. Throwing axes seem to do a lot though.9) "handling cav still awful feels like ice-skating " ARE YOU INSANE? Cavalry to me has felt way better than Warband.
And now all the stuff we're complaining was in Warband, but is different in Bannerlord and is irrelevant. Different games.
bump-stabs need to be more easy to do
infantry spears need to be shorter
bump couching is too easy needs to be looked into
The 3rd person cross hair placement is really counter intuitive, and should be made similar to how warband's worked.
TL;DR
I hope they don't change most of the core aspects of pvp right now.
I would love to see more customization. But we'll all probably only be playing mods for pvp a month from now so who cares.
This is a significant issue that I pointed out straight off early in the alpha, and sadly is still present. It's so effective that when going back to Warband I found myself constantly using right swings when it made no sense simply because it became muscle memory. Left swing isn't just slower, but it's also a lot more likely to bounce since your hand will be hitting first. Back when we could host private servers, I tested increasing attacker recovery so much that I could effectively spam 2 hits in, and I could only ever be punished with right swings, which was completely counter-intuitive. The attack that offers the highest reach shouldn't also be the fastest and most reliable, it only incentivizes outranging spam which is aggravated by the current movement.
That's not the point, people aren't asking for chambers to be 'easier', but to be reliable and consistent. At the moment their timing — especially thanks to stances — can vary significantly, and more importantly chambers require both weapons to physically touch, nobody can ever reach such physical precision, and as a consequence chambering mostly comes down to luck, with some attacks being downright close to impossible to chamber intentionally. You don't see people in Warband not swinging because chambers are reliable, they still require good timing and skill to pull off.
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A few things that have been touched on already coming from a comp archer player from Aus.
1) Headshot dmg is terrible, only the fians on the lowest armor enemies can get a 1 shot kill with bows making xbows much more meta if you aim for the head more than the body. I have my suspicions that armor values just apply to every part of the body because of how a peasant can take a headshot and not die from most bows.
2) The reticle position is completely different if you change between 1st/3rd person which is a first as warband & wfas both melded together pretty well, this has caused me issues ingame from the get go as i feel you have to aim at someones waist (or it goes straight over them) just to hit them in 3rd person, basically making me always shoot in 1st person. I think throwing is similiar if i recall correctly.
3) There are bugs where if you get hit or something you can't aim again, usually swapping weapons back and forth does fix it eventually. Warband had similiar glitches with xbows.
4) Arrow speeds are slower than warband which just changes the general gameplay a little but nothing too savage. Perhaps faster arrows could be faster as I haven't noticed much difference? Also dmg arrows could use a buff perhaps if they aren't gonna scale head armor to make it possible to 1 hit hs peasants then that would be an alternative.
To everyone saying archers are OP take another lap and look again as much as shields are more like cRPG in this with shooting toes or heads based on position you don't have to worry about being 1 hit by a war bow.
1) Headshot dmg is terrible, only the fians on the lowest armor enemies can get a 1 shot kill with bows making xbows much more meta if you aim for the head more than the body. I have my suspicions that armor values just apply to every part of the body because of how a peasant can take a headshot and not die from most bows.
2) The reticle position is completely different if you change between 1st/3rd person which is a first as warband & wfas both melded together pretty well, this has caused me issues ingame from the get go as i feel you have to aim at someones waist (or it goes straight over them) just to hit them in 3rd person, basically making me always shoot in 1st person. I think throwing is similiar if i recall correctly.
3) There are bugs where if you get hit or something you can't aim again, usually swapping weapons back and forth does fix it eventually. Warband had similiar glitches with xbows.
4) Arrow speeds are slower than warband which just changes the general gameplay a little but nothing too savage. Perhaps faster arrows could be faster as I haven't noticed much difference? Also dmg arrows could use a buff perhaps if they aren't gonna scale head armor to make it possible to 1 hit hs peasants then that would be an alternative.
To everyone saying archers are OP take another lap and look again as much as shields are more like cRPG in this with shooting toes or heads based on position you don't have to worry about being 1 hit by a war bow.
Archery accuracy isn't the problem - the same people who complain about that will be upset when accuracy nerfs make their teammates shoot them. Do we want this game to be skill based or not? Damage isn't a problem either seeing as they're weaker than warband archers, as Sota said basically every faction is a sarranid archer in comparison as you pretty much never get 1hit headshots. If you nerfed anything about them it'd be the elite archer for some factions, which have very good melee weapons (maces) or their armour is maybe too heavy which makes inf more redundant.
Inf really needs a buff though, spears need to be much, much better against cav and maybe give them a buff to their athletics skill so they can catch archers. Cav also can couch lance way too often as well which I think adds to their considerable power atm.
Thats just my thoughts anyway
Inf really needs a buff though, spears need to be much, much better against cav and maybe give them a buff to their athletics skill so they can catch archers. Cav also can couch lance way too often as well which I think adds to their considerable power atm.
Thats just my thoughts anyway
I don't think archers are OP, I think the problem lies with 2 points that make people say that. Shields provide too little coverage; shooting legs is as easy as shooting a torso now. Movement for infantry is too slow, this makes slow bumbling movements that are trivial to hit. Shooting into melee in warband was dangerous because characters moved quicker and you might hit your team mate. Now everyone, bad and good alike are able to shoot into melee as much as their heart desires without consequence to themselves or their team.
the biggest buff to archer is cav not being able to kill them 1v1 unless they really mess up
1. I agree, shield bash is useful when you are using a spear or want to gain a free hit (into a shield)
2. I actually think archers are fine? Damage is very comparable to Warband, sometimes the broken armour absorption absorbs way too much. The headshot damage should be buffed though.
3. How many times do people have to repeat themselves? We do not want a Warband 2.0, we hardly care if it's like Warband or not. We compare it to Warband because, in Warband, the combat worked. In Bannerlord it doesn't.
4. Being able to chamber consistently was a skill, one you could learn after a lot of time spent training. The risk was always there, but that was the point. I don't understand your argument about making the chambers easier but also so they maintain the risk - the whole point of chambers is about the risk/reward aspect.
5. The movement is slidey, not sure what else to say... your steps do not have any weight.
6. You can't block 2 opponents. If they are both any decent, you will simply die because Bannerlord won't allow you to switch the blocks so fast... Why shouldn't you be able to block 2 opponents if you are skilled enough?
7. lol, except you die after one or two hits every time. The whole classes and perks system is badly balanced and has an even worse design. Peasant classes are simply useless, no one sane will just buy peasant instead of a legionary (for example), legionary will probably survive 3 times the amount of hits and has better equipment. Who cares about another life when you actually outlive the peasant just by having more armour? The economy aspect is lacking, it's shallow... you take a maximum of 90 gold to next round, but what's the actual point? That you can buy the same cavalry class twice instead of once? (not saying it's weak)
This whole system should have been made differently, if you wanted perks, you should have just made 3 main classes and give each class ~9 perks, each perk priced based on the strength of it. Instead, we have unbalanced "classes" with "take a bit of gold to a next round" system.
8. Throwing weapons are insane - they are accurate as hell, they deal pretty large amounts of damage and almost every class has some, anything else to add? You shouldn't be able to just run around and hit almost every throw.
9. We can agree on this one - partially - I don't mind the cavalry movement.
There are so many problems with the gameplay, my mind can't comprehend how some people refuse to see them and instead praise the game and combat for something that was implemented better in Warband already.
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Couches op, but you can't see where your lance actually is when couching, which is bad.
Weapon arches... ???
Weapon length - some weapons look short and still have a big reach, some are long and have smaller reach.
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I think being able to spawn with best armors is a bad idea. It is also not fun as well. I am getting used to the game mod but I still want to have old Warband equipment system back for Multiplayer. I do not wanna play a competitive match when we have to hit a player more than 5 times to kill (Assuming 1h). In high level it will create a chaos and fights will take too long. Also we need more equipment more types of swords crossbows, bows etc. I read most of the comments related to combat and i agree with most of them I do not think I should write again. Hope they can fix bugs of the single fast so they can focus on MP...
Also rank system pls
Also rank system pls
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To me the most important thing is to implement some matchmaking system, Im hardly the best player around and out of 7 game so far ive only lost 1 (which ended in a loss 10 seconds after i spawned in a siege). Its not fun for me or the other team for me to stomp skirmishes with 12-14 kills and maybe 1-2 deaths, hell some skirmishes i haven't even been hit. I can only imagine the poor newbs faces when they roll up into a stack of vets. You cant really get a feel for what works and what is broken if you can roll a whole team with just a 2h axe, The reason ive only played 7 matches is because frankly smashing newbs just isnt fun or worth the effort so i run to SP or another game
Siege isnt much fun to go to either, even though i die a lot to arrow spam when you do get into combat there is no team damage so its 104030 spears stabbing randomly into melees
Siege isnt much fun to go to either, even though i die a lot to arrow spam when you do get into combat there is no team damage so its 104030 spears stabbing randomly into melees
This is correct, the Warband system of armour is still used in singleplayer but in multiplayer the armour values you see in class selection is applied to the whole body now. Yes, it's garbage, yes we want rid of it, and no we don't know why they did it.
Agree with this sentiment. The difficulty that infantry currently have quickly killing others in melee - on account of manifold issues listed above - encourages infantry players to do things like holding attacks or trying to move around their opponents' shields, both of which exacerbate the strength of archers targeting them.
I hope the delay between blocks in fixed. Trying to use the system will get you killed in a 2v1 unless you sprint around and wait for the delay to wear off.
Yeah it's a small thing but I think it detracts from the game in so many ways.
Very good feedback. Questions is if any of it will get addressed
My thoughts in terms of balance:
-Cavalry needs nerfed in some way. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that hitboxes for them are off, how can it be I aim at the riders head(I'm on horseback) and my lance hits his horses legs according to my damage report in the chat box? Would also explain why spears literally never seem to stop horses. The damage calculation for hitting someone on horseback and them hitting you is so off, it's amazing how many times it's a one shot for me on foot and the guy is literally riding full speed into a spear point and shrugs off 40 dmg. Same with the stationary lance, you can abuse the **** out of infantry by slowly trotting round them stabbing down, they can't hurt you and you do 20 dmg each time. Couched lances need a cooldown ASAP, and couchbumping can gtfo as well, it makes no physical sense that being knocked over by the horse results in the couch lance colliding with you(?!). I'll be fine with horses knocking me off my feet for 3 or 4 seconds if it means that being knocked off my horse results in me being vulnerable for the same amount of time.
-Infantry shields and armour for all classes needs to be reduced in HP/Armour. It's getting real tiring hitting people 5 or 6 times and then being couched or shot in the back before they can be finished off. And when you find a player who is "less skilled" they just hold their shield up and you have to hit it for a full minute or two to get through to them. That's a minute or two their team can come and stab you in the back. If it was Warband they would be dead within 30 seconds. If not the armour getting reduced then melee damage for infantry classes needs to be double what it is now so when you actually hit someone with a perfect swing they die.
-Archers are way too easy to use. I say this as someone absolutely horrendous at archery in Warband, I can hit headshots across the map with Bannerlord archery. There is no opportunity for mistake, if you can't take the shot you just lower the bow and within a second you have it back up again and able to take a pinpoint accurate shot again without accounting for arrow drop. In Warband they had it perfect, you slow way down, you have to start from the beginning so it took time to line up your shot, and they had limited time to take the shot before the crosshair expanded. It's no wonder people can kite the **** out of you still.
-The gold costs are all over the place. What's the point in any other class when heavy infantry and heavy archers are 2 lives classes now, and surviving a round gives you 2 lives as heavy cavalry. In all honesty Skirmish is just a failed mode at this point, what the hell was wrong with Battle? If the morale was quick enough to give less skilled teams a chance to outmaneouvre the enemy with flags then maybe it would be better but right now it's just a weird Battle/TDM mix with extra steps. Not to mention the spawning system is broken as ****, I killed two archers in the small barn near C on the "Market" skirmish map and they immediatly spawned right next to me where I promptly killed them both again. I'll routinely spawn miles away from my team and have to fight my way through 6 players to get to them, or the other way around, the enemy team will continue to outpour from a spawning point right next to me fighting 1v1.
These are my thoughts of playing Skirmish the last couple of days, I usually picked Heavy Archer classes in the first round, usually not dying, then spammed Heavy Cavalry. The only time this didn't work was as Empire because Cataphract is 200 gold, I instead had to pick Legionary or Palatine Guard as my 2nd spawn. The times I went infantry because I wanted to play my favourite class I got bumrushed by 3 cavalry dudes or shot by several archers while trying to kill their one infantry guy for the last 5 minutes. Which just resulted in me saying "What's the ****ing point" and picking cavalry to **** on them all again.
-Cavalry needs nerfed in some way. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that hitboxes for them are off, how can it be I aim at the riders head(I'm on horseback) and my lance hits his horses legs according to my damage report in the chat box? Would also explain why spears literally never seem to stop horses. The damage calculation for hitting someone on horseback and them hitting you is so off, it's amazing how many times it's a one shot for me on foot and the guy is literally riding full speed into a spear point and shrugs off 40 dmg. Same with the stationary lance, you can abuse the **** out of infantry by slowly trotting round them stabbing down, they can't hurt you and you do 20 dmg each time. Couched lances need a cooldown ASAP, and couchbumping can gtfo as well, it makes no physical sense that being knocked over by the horse results in the couch lance colliding with you(?!). I'll be fine with horses knocking me off my feet for 3 or 4 seconds if it means that being knocked off my horse results in me being vulnerable for the same amount of time.
-Infantry shields and armour for all classes needs to be reduced in HP/Armour. It's getting real tiring hitting people 5 or 6 times and then being couched or shot in the back before they can be finished off. And when you find a player who is "less skilled" they just hold their shield up and you have to hit it for a full minute or two to get through to them. That's a minute or two their team can come and stab you in the back. If it was Warband they would be dead within 30 seconds. If not the armour getting reduced then melee damage for infantry classes needs to be double what it is now so when you actually hit someone with a perfect swing they die.
-Archers are way too easy to use. I say this as someone absolutely horrendous at archery in Warband, I can hit headshots across the map with Bannerlord archery. There is no opportunity for mistake, if you can't take the shot you just lower the bow and within a second you have it back up again and able to take a pinpoint accurate shot again without accounting for arrow drop. In Warband they had it perfect, you slow way down, you have to start from the beginning so it took time to line up your shot, and they had limited time to take the shot before the crosshair expanded. It's no wonder people can kite the **** out of you still.
-The gold costs are all over the place. What's the point in any other class when heavy infantry and heavy archers are 2 lives classes now, and surviving a round gives you 2 lives as heavy cavalry. In all honesty Skirmish is just a failed mode at this point, what the hell was wrong with Battle? If the morale was quick enough to give less skilled teams a chance to outmaneouvre the enemy with flags then maybe it would be better but right now it's just a weird Battle/TDM mix with extra steps. Not to mention the spawning system is broken as ****, I killed two archers in the small barn near C on the "Market" skirmish map and they immediatly spawned right next to me where I promptly killed them both again. I'll routinely spawn miles away from my team and have to fight my way through 6 players to get to them, or the other way around, the enemy team will continue to outpour from a spawning point right next to me fighting 1v1.
These are my thoughts of playing Skirmish the last couple of days, I usually picked Heavy Archer classes in the first round, usually not dying, then spammed Heavy Cavalry. The only time this didn't work was as Empire because Cataphract is 200 gold, I instead had to pick Legionary or Palatine Guard as my 2nd spawn. The times I went infantry because I wanted to play my favourite class I got bumrushed by 3 cavalry dudes or shot by several archers while trying to kill their one infantry guy for the last 5 minutes. Which just resulted in me saying "What's the ****ing point" and picking cavalry to **** on them all again.
As an archer, I don't feel more accurate as I did in Warband. I just feel my arrows hit things they wouldn't have hit in Warband. Shields protect less, footshots are still very easy, except for the shields that physically cover your knees, shields also don't cover the sides as well as they did in Warband which makes the angle you need to hit an inf alot smaller and thus makes you hit alot more. Moreover, the directional blocking also adds in to this. Not only when directly facing an archer, for instance when you directly face an archer and block to the left with your shield the right side of your body is not protected at all, but also when you're at an angle because again the position off your shields changes so drastically with the direction in which you block that a certain angle an archer has on you might not hit if you block left, but could hit if you block right; Obviously this applies to all four blocking directions.
I don't think it's the archers that need a nerf to fix this issue. As OGL said, they might need a small nerf regardless, but if you want to nerf archers to the extent that they won't be such a menace on the battlefield without changing anything else you'll nerf them to ****. I don't think that's the right approach. Instead I suggest buffing the defenses the classes have vs ranged attacks. This could be done through various means, the most obvious of which is expending the forcefield the shields have a little bit so the sides of the body are protected. You could also reduce the animations that come with the different directional blocks so there's more overlap and it doesn't sway as much.
I don't think it's the archers that need a nerf to fix this issue. As OGL said, they might need a small nerf regardless, but if you want to nerf archers to the extent that they won't be such a menace on the battlefield without changing anything else you'll nerf them to ****. I don't think that's the right approach. Instead I suggest buffing the defenses the classes have vs ranged attacks. This could be done through various means, the most obvious of which is expending the forcefield the shields have a little bit so the sides of the body are protected. You could also reduce the animations that come with the different directional blocks so there's more overlap and it doesn't sway as much.
