Overall Game Balancing Still Missing The Mark

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Reiksmarshal

Sergeant Knight at Arms
Finally had some time off and spent my 3 day weekend playing the hell out of Bannerlord, I really do love this game and wanted to post some balance feedback. I'll just get to the point-

Character Starting Choices

Redundancy - some choices are redundant for example adds a skill point to bow and crossbow or one hand and two hand. If I am building a bow character I don't want a wasted crossbow skill point. There are so many of these I feel like my choices are based on which ones are the least wasteful! This really kills character creation and limits making cool and unique builds.

Cultural Appropriate - The starting choices should be more geared to the culture to make them a bit more unique. For example the hunting choice for the Aserai should not buff crossbow for example. It should buff bow, spear, throwing, athletics, etc

Culture Traits

These could be so much better and I feel like the only good ones are the Vlandians and the Aserai. These should do at least 2 things each for example the Sturgian one could also add +15 vigor skills during snow battles and the Battiana one could add +15 vigor skills to forest battles. That would make these factions more dangerous in their element and add a fun mechanic to the game.

Unit Balance

Armor balance is my number one complaint, it feels like a sucky e-sport and single player balance needs to be different then multiplayer. Armor values should be scaled up and some weapon damage reduced. Battles are over way to soon! this balance would seriously improve the game.

Infantry - Why do elite infantry have such average stats and literally have the same melee stats as crossbowmen, this needs to be address and melee troops needs to excel at melee.

Mercenary Companies

These should be elite troops and be better than regular faction troops making them worth while to hire otherwise they are useless in their current state. The Skolderbroda (shield brothers) should be the best melee troops in the game hands down, they should be super elite and one of the most sought after mercenary companies kind of like the Jomsvikings. There should also be a way to recruit these unit types, for example they could show up in taverns in small groups to hire like other mercenaries. These Companies should be scary as hell and not just a punching bag for the player.

Character Progression

Leveling is still too slow even for a grindy player like me. There needs to be some auxiliary systems added like bring books back and add trainers that you can pay to level skills. I really miss books from warband and hope they come back, I always had the military training book in my inventory. There should be trainers/masters through the world that you can study under to improve skills like one hand etc. Also some skills level way too slow.

Companions

There should be a starting minimum of 5 companions for each culture to start and should spawn more often. I had one companion of my culture and it was one of the sucky ones I always avoid. This is such an easy thing to fix that is such a source of frustration, I have restarted campaign based on the stating companions.

Perks

Captain/Governor - These need to apply to you some how, or example if you are leading your own party and you have no captains you should be the default captain and the same goes for governor.

Perk Affect - Some of these are so small they do nothing for example +2% speed? why not at least +5%? or +2 hp. Some of these are too weak and need a buff. I am glad the perks are mostly working now, but they need to be looked at again and scale up the affect on some.

Spring of Gold - please remove the 1000 cap on this! I also find features like this fun and the cap is hit too easy.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and the game was played on version 1.5.9
 
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Character Starting Choices

Redundancy - some choices are redundant for example adds a skill point to bow and crossbow or one hand and two hand. If I am building a bow character I don't want a wasted crossbow skill point. There are so many of these I feel like my choices are based on which ones are the least wasteful! This really kills character creation and limits making cool and unique builds.
This one I tend to pass off as "you had a varied experience doing <whatever your choice was>". Seems fair to me from a roleplaying standpoint at least, but I get why it seems weird and superfluous.
Cultural Appropriate - The starting choices should be more geared to the culture to make them a bit more unique. For example the hunting choice for the Aserai should not buff crossbow for example. It should buff bow, spear, throwing, athletics, etc
Now THIS I completely agree on. Makes no sense for, like you said, Aserai hunters to have crossbow skills.
Culture Traits

These could be so much better and I feel like the only good ones are the Vlandians and the Aserai. These should do at least 2 things each for example the Sturgian one could also add +15 vigor skills during snow battles and the Battiana one could add +15 vigor skills to forest battles. That would make these factions more dangerous in their element and add a fun mechanic to the game.
Agree. The cultural bonuses tend to range from "mostly useless" to "useful in one specific situation". More variety would undoubtedly be a good thing.
Unit Balance

Armor balance is my number one complaint, it feels like a sucky e-sport and single player balance needs to be different then multiplayer. Armor values should be scaled up and some weapon damage reduced. Battles are over way to soon! this balance would seriously improve the game.
A very common complaint that I completely agree with. See also discussions on spear vs cavalry.
Character Progression

Leveling is still too slow even for a grindy player like me. There needs to be some auxiliary systems added like bring books back and add trainers that you can pay to level skills. I really miss books from warband and hope they come back, I always had the military training book in my inventory. There should be trainers/masters through the world that you can study under to improve skills like one hand etc. Also some skills level way too slow.
Agreed, I like having multiple ways to raise skills. Though I believe 1.5.10 removed the skill gain drop over time, so this should at least be slightly better (they listened to feedback for once!).
Perk Affect - Some of these are so small they do nothing for example +2% speed? why not at least +5%? or +2 hp. Some of these are too weak and need a buff. I am glad the perks are mostly working now, but they need to be looked at again and scale up the affect on some.
Agreed again, the perks are pretty boring and weak, especially the starting ones. I'm not creative enough to come up with better ones, but frankly that's TW's job :razz:. 2% at the very least needs to be increased. You don't even notice 2%.
Spring of Gold - please remove the 1000 cap on this! I also find features like this fun and the cap is hit too easy.
Agreed but don't expect this to go anywhere most of all out of any feedback here. TW seems utterly intent on nerfing any ways we have of making significant money.
 
Good points!
The +crossbow choices bother me too! I would love a more direct control over what I get and 10X more so for heirs being educated.
I do think the Khuzaut and battanian cultural traits are very good though.
1.5.10 sees the removal of "level up = skill learning down" so skilling up is a little better overall but slow skills are still too slow. Devs have said they're working on enhancing medicine (and adding alt way to get skill) and presumably other slow skills too.

The spring of gold nerf bothers me even though I don't do trading. Why nerf that when I can stomp out factions as a solo clan and be sitting on 10-20k daily income long before a trader gets that perk? I'd guess the Dev in charge of that skill area just pays attention and jumps on it more quickly then other areas of the game can be balanced.
 
I agree with every point. I came back to bannerlord seeing TW improved learning system (that was requested about year ago...). Now game is more enjoyable and I don't feel I'm wasting time taking a walk town streets, playing board games or doing something else that don't imporve my skills.
Some skills are still slow to develop, this needs some tweaking. Same with perks, some are really good, others are almost useless.

I would few additional things:
1. Rework merceneries, they should be powerfull professional high level units.
2. Add caravan guards as mercs. I don't know why they added 'culture' armed trader but not caravan guards. That would be cool and immersive for trader characters.
3. Add option to recruit bandit units from hideouts (or gang leaders). Must have for rouge, outlaw characters. Outlaw is ruining his recruitment pool by raiding villages and caravans so his only option is to recruit prisoner, hire mercs or troops from gang leaders.
 
Armor balance is my number one complaint, it feels like a sucky e-sport and single player balance needs to be different then multiplayer. Armor values should be scaled up and some weapon damage reduced. Battles are over way to soon! this balance would seriously improve the game.

no independent spacing
no spear to create defensive style combat
everyone forced to use sidearms
sidearms now have to do significant damage that can go though armor
units have to be very close to fight with sidearms
evolved into rush hour train simulator
combat become overhead slam compeition
armor now useless because every hit is a headshot
they can't fix it because everything is connected unless with a complete rework
 
A lot of good points guys, but seriously why do infantry and archers have the same melee stats after a year! Has nobody brought this up? Is this some kind of little jimmy balancing from MP that made it into single player. Pretty weak and I hope the devs pull it together asap because the community is turning on them little by little. As for the hardcoded AI issue, that is a dev problem and something they need to to resolve and they have the resource to do it.
 
A lot of good points guys, but seriously why do infantry and archers have the same melee stats after a year! Has nobody brought this up? Is this some kind of little jimmy balancing from MP that made it into single player. Pretty weak and I hope the devs pull it together asap because the community is turning on them little by little. As for the hardcoded AI issue, that is a dev problem and something they need to to resolve and they have the resource to do it.
Stats don't really matter nearly as much as weapons and gear. And usually archers in Bannerlord aren't well equipped to fight in melee, so they tend to lose against infantry.

I think the effect of stats should be improved though. That, and somehow bring back things like Iron Flesh to add more to unit durability and create a real difference between hardy line infantry and marksman.
 
I'm glad that I was able to sorta fix-to-preference the pacing of (a lot of) leveling through modding the character development models because the game still seems to stick to a lot of design which commits the gaming sin of feeling like an absolute Waste of Time. Which is pretty bad if I'm feeling it because I find a lot of grinds somewhat relaxing. I do appreciate that they sorta backed off the worsening skill gains by level thing tho.

Skills books and passive sources of training could definitely round out more of it. Especially since they seem to sorta pushed more perk roles in being important to governing without a lot of ways to really work on those outside of the whole... ~~defending the same village~~ army battle slog. Which is another kind of long-term problem to the campaign level behind taking another break from the game.
 
Stats don't really matter nearly as much as weapons and gear. And usually archers in Bannerlord aren't well equipped to fight in melee, so they tend to lose against infantry.

Yeah but when you look at the tier 4-5 crossbow units they have pretty high level gear and hit just as hard as infantry. I don't take infantry anymore and just use crossbows to fill that role. With their pavise shield, high level melee weapon, and same stats as infantry is completely pointless.

I think the effect of stats should be improved though. That, and somehow bring back things like Iron Flesh to add more to unit durability and create a real difference between hardy line infantry and marksman.

I agree, stats should have an impact and I do miss iron flesh.
 
We need more than weapon characteristics. We need functional tools.
&
We need meaningfull custumization-usage at character abilities (Durability. Movement speed. Power. Attack speed etc..)
&
Better, more perks.
&
More cultural touches at classes.

Do we need balance touches like "98 went to 101" ? After a radical touch, yes. But, not as now. It needes endless similar changes as now.

(talkin for mp)
 
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