Patch Notes v1.1.4 ...?

[five bucks]

Clearly, there are major bugs in some of the code still.

I am blessed not to have seen some of the weird overflows around Tribute or Army Influence, but you can't base your estimate of the Tribute system on an obvious bug.

Look at the other images though, that's how tribute works in other cases too: it massively over-values raids. Since 48 raids have occurred in that instance, a massive amount of tribute is being asked for.

If you do think it's a bug then can we agree it might be worth fixing?

Yeah, again, cool, you want the game to be different than it is. You think you "should" be getting tribute. You're not; maybe learn how to play the game instead, *if tribute payments matter to you*.

I simply cannot fathom anyone who played M&B realistically expects TaleWorlds to do some of this stuff. I'm a big modder, but I still have to defend the base game from Veterans like you, because you expect something without any evidence of it ever happening in history lol.

Come on man. I know how to play. I think it's just really immersion breaking and needlessly adding to the grind of a playthrough that I have soundly defeated an enemy through superior skill at the game, but my vassals unanimously vote to pay tribute to them because they raided 1 fief. And I'm definitely not the only one, lots of people hate this.

I've seen Taleworlds make changes based on user feedback before (eg: OOB, armour, tournament rewards, smithing economy, cavalry targeting, cavalry charge damage, dialogue etc) so I do realistically expect them to possibly do some of these things.

It's always hard to judge without the in game impact, but I think at least on paper these look like good changes that represent the kind of diversification and balance I think shields should have. Coverage is the wild card for me since right now it feels like most shield using troops with few exceptions have very little variation in that respect (I'm not sure how much impact low vs. high coverage will make on balance), but I think it would be good to have more variety there as long as troops are adjusted accordingly.

Excellent! I've updated the OP with that information and might make it a separate post later.

I've also gone through the spears. You're very right that +50% is way too much. I took into account that daggers range from 103-98 stab speed, and swords have on average 93 stab speed. And here are the stats of all spears:

Spoiler: All spear stats

Asterix indicates 92 speed or above.

Simple Short Spear - 83/91
Short Simple Raider Spear - 82/89
Short Militia Spear - 83/91
Military Fork - 80/89
Sparring Spear - 82/89
Simple Commoner Spear - 84/92 *
Weighted Steppe Spear - 85/93 *
Jagged Spear - 89/96 *
Tall Tipped Spear - 79/88
Light Cavalry Lance - 89/91
Triangular Headed Spear - 82/91
Broad Leaf Shaped Spear - 85/92 *
Tall Tipped Long Spear - 79/88
Reinforced Highland Spear - 76/85
Sparring Jagged Spear - 89/96*
Knob Headed Spear - 84/92*
Light Steppe Rider Lance - 82/91
Sparring Lance - 83/91
Knob Headed Spear with Frills - 84/92*
Light Lance - 80/89
Narrow Long Headed Spear - 82/90
Sparring Lance - 82/90
Jagged Fine Steel Spear - 85/94*
Steel Tipped Hooked Spear - 79/88
Heavy Cavalry Lance - 83/91
Knight Lance - 83/91
Long Fine Steel Spear - 78/86
Mamluke Lance - 85/93*
Fine Steel Spear - 79/87
Druzhinik Lance - 85/93*
Wide Leaf Spear - 79/87
Fine Steel Leaf Spear - 84/92*
Long Thamaskene Tipped Spear - 83/91
Highland War Spear - 84/92*
Heavy Knight Lance - 81/89
Pilum - 93/100*
Heavy Druzhinik Lance - 82/89
Jagged Throwing Spear - 90/98*
Thin Fine Steel Hewing Spear - 87/94*
Fine Steel Hewing Spear - 81/89
Noble Cavalry Lance - 83/91
Practice Spear - 86/94*
Triangular Throwing Spear - 89/96*
Simple Pike - 92*
Notched Military Fork - 87
Fine Pike - 83
Courser Lance - 86
Thamaskene Pike - 83
Cataphract Lance - 88
Pike - 79

With this in mind, I changed the +50% across the board to +10% for all spears except Pilum and Jagged Throwing Spear. So the fastest a spear gets in 2h mode is 105. I also made Pilum throwable again.

Enough to warrant a "yes" vote now, in your opinion?

 

[Bluko88]

@anoddhermit

Alright I've gone through all shields, recorded their values, created a "baseline" desired average for each tier, modified the averages based on size/type/appearance of shield, then further tweaked those results based on other visual or name quirks of each shield. This is the first draft, what are your thoughts? (I'm a tad tired so there's probably multiple mistakes that can be fixed)

---

Currently in Bannerlord all shields are classed as "large shields". Now there are two more categories which some shields are moved into:
"Small" - Better weight and speed. Worse coverage. Normal HP. Most targe and adarga shields are in this category.
"Light" - Better weight and speed. Normal coverage. Worse HP. Most cavalry, heater and wicker shields are in this category.
"Large" - Worse weight and speed. Better coverage. Normal HP. Most kite, pavise and round shields are in this category.

Some shields have also had their tier changed, in order to suit their appearance better and provide more representation for certain types of shield in higher or lower tiers. These shields are marked with an *asterix* beside their newly changed tier.

I see there are some shield mods from way back in 2020, but guessing those don't work so great nowadays.

What bothers me the most is some shields have ridiculous weights, even though they are both small in protection area and low on HP. I'm not about to mess with meshes or anything like, and I know some of the Battanian shields are quite bad in this regard. Also I don't have a very good grasp on what "Shield Speed" effects. Is it simply the speed to raise/lower or is it draw speed or the bash speed? Or does shield speed impede movement by a certain amount when raised?

Personally I would like to have a reasonable formula where Weight is determined by HP and Length. I'm thinking...

(Length/50)*(HP/100) = Weight

So the Pavise being basically the ultimate heavy shield would be:
118 Length
560 Hitpoints
13 Weight

And a relatively junky Wooden Adarga (currently 7.3 Weight...) would be:
60 Length
240 Hitpoints
3 Weight

Gee would you look at that, the cheap small shield doesn't weigh the same amount as a suit of chainmail armor! And the big high hitpoint shield is freaking heavy; enough that you definitely want decent Athlectics before lugging it around.


Actually looking at things wondering if the Battanian Highland shields are simply bad due to length? Length is only 70...

Surprisingly the Makeshift Kite Shield has greatest length at 170, granted it's a fairly tall shield, but might explain why foot shoots are impossible with it up. Runner up would be the Oaken Kite Shield (and couple other Kites) have length of 128, which I know is also difficult if not impossible to get a foot shot on. Most Shields seem to range from 60 to 120 Length which makes sense based off my experiences and their protection area against projectiles.

 

[mujadaddy]

If you do think it's a bug then can we agree it might be worth fixing?

If I haven't been clear, it is not a bug, it's a feature. We can disagree how that feature is tuned, but *having played it TW's way* for the past 6 months, I think everyone is whining because they think MONEY on the screen is more important than killing all the enemy's elite troops.

Who cares about money? Are you OUT of money?

The game is designed to be PERPETUAL. Unwinnable in the video game sense of the word. If you are trying to win, you are making something out of that intentional balance.

 

[JunKeteer]

If I haven't been clear, it is not a bug, it's a feature. We can disagree how that feature is tuned, but *having played it TW's way* for the past 6 months, I think everyone is whining because they think MONEY on the screen is more important than killing all the enemy's elite troops.

Who cares about money? Are you OUT of money?

The game is designed to be PERPETUAL. Unwinnable in the video game sense of the word. If you are trying to win, you are making something out of that intentional balance.

But if it was designed to be perpetual; it sure as hell wasn't balanced that way. There's no side content in this game besides playing/winning battles; which all devolve after a few short years to just fief/town takeover fights with the occasional field ones - only in army bashing format.
The 'tribute balancing' they implemented works when all the kingdoms are within a reasonable power of each other for some sense of ebb/&flow - once the player is involved, all those calculations go out the window - but also the lack of any system in place for player input to 'eliminate' it. Hence, a fief-less kingdom able to get tribute payment from a kingdom with 20 towns as well as perpetually spawn in front of your face and raid your village unendingly.

 

[LuciusDomitiusAurelianus]

Hoping 1.1.1 continues to build on these new systems particularly more voice lines & the alleyways and how the Criminal Rating system can be utilized in a different way. Would be cool to actually have Criminal Lords get bumped out of a Kingdom and have war declared sort of like how the Rebellion Clans & Minor Factions work now.

If you get over 50% criminal rating in 50% of the fiefs you get your ass tossed out and are at war with the benefit of having a Kingdom and not needing to get to Clan Tier 4 but maybe give you bonuses to the alleyways in the form of increased sneak percentage (so you can sell/buy) and increased revenue and maybe even increase siege chance (given your criminals can open the gate or what not). What would be even cooler is it makes all Bandits in the area neutral / allied to you sort of like how Peasant parties act so you can freely recruit and they'll end up joining you in battles.

A larger Diplomacy pass is needed either way but I think having a viable way to play a Bandit requires it being hooked into all systems not just have a perk to convert bandits to nobles, hire bandits, and have a few alleys which waste companions

 

[mujadaddy]

There's no side content in this game besides playing/winning battles

Yes.

Many people are under the impression there is more to the game, so they will perpetually be disappointed.

But if one looks at the battles as the reward, it all makes a certain kind of sense.

 

[JunKeteer]

Yes.

Many people are under the impression there is more to the game, so they will perpetually be disappointed.

But if one looks at the battles as the reward, it all makes a certain kind of sense.

The only issue is how easy and quick it is to spam endless battle after battle so that element does tire very quickly - especially if you're taking and retaking the same town/castle every time.
Those 1K/2K+ battles, which were a lot more 'rare' in Warband, completely loses its charm in BL after you do a few of them. It's almost always army vs army (with how the influence works) bashes and most field tactics (even RBM) are still just the same tactics/formations; just n+ units; regardless what map overlay even.

 

[anoddhermit]

Excellent! I've updated the OP with that information and might make it a separate post later.

I've also gone through the spears. You're very right that +50% is way too much. I took into account that daggers range from 103-98 stab speed, and swords have on average 93 stab speed. And here are the stats of all spears:


With this in mind, I changed the +50% across the board to +10% for all spears except Pilum and Jagged Throwing Spear. So the fastest a spear gets in 2h mode is 105. I also made Pilum throwable again.

Enough to warrant a "yes" vote now, in your opinion?

Sure, changed.

 

[five bucks]

If I haven't been clear, it is not a bug, it's a feature. We can disagree how that feature is tuned, but *having played it TW's way* for the past 6 months, I think everyone is whining because they think MONEY on the screen is more important than killing all the enemy's elite troops.

Who cares about money? Are you OUT of money?

What I care about is not being punished for winning.

Bannerlord should be comprised of challenges, not of mindless grind. Being punished for winning just adds to the mindless grind, but not to the challenge.

The game is designed to be PERPETUAL. Unwinnable in the video game sense of the word. If you are trying to win, you are making something out of that intentional balance.

If the game isn't meant to be won, can I please ask why the game has achievements for winning? And why the default way most people play and even did in Warband too, is to conquer the whole world? And why the main quest of the game is entirely focused around conquering all of Calradia?

Are there any statements from Taleworlds saying the game is designed to be perpetual?

Sure, changed.

Cheers

 

[mujadaddy]

Are there any statements from Taleworlds

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Trust, but verify." ?

You're not being punished for winning; you are given new challenges. If you want to "win more", tackle those challenges. If you don't, don't.

Is *hunting down every noble of an entire kingdom* grindy?

I can't believe how little embracing of the realism of the game people do. What is your loop? "Oops, I win because I have adjusted all the levers to my own specific liking"? Killing people and taking their stuff should be hard, and not what you expect.

Some of you are out here wanting not to play the game. Not the bugs or the cruft, but the game. The game is hard, and when you have all their nobles in jail, you are rewarded with their pathetic 20-man bands terrorizing your villages until you round them up again. Just like real life.

Delete your account if you want to take that away from us.

 

[Mad Vader]

I'm losing track which are the troll accounts around here.

 

[JunKeteer]

What I care about is not being punished for winning.

Bannerlord should be comprised of challenges, not of mindless grind. Being punished for winning just adds to the mindless grind, but not to the challenge.

If the game isn't meant to be won, can I please ask why the game has achievements for winning? And why the default way most people play and even did in Warband too, is to conquer the whole world? And why the main quest of the game is entirely focused around conquering all of Calradia?

It's because the only thing players can really do in the game is fight battles, so naturally, the player wants to win those (and get efficient at it); so we all come to the same late-game stage issues as we have since EA 1.0.0 where it's just that, but with the 19nth castle.
If that is the 'end-game' goal, having those phantom/defeated/fief-less kingdoms is counterintuitive to that - they have no chance of coming back from the dead anyways or being a challenge in any way whatsoever to the player who already is exponentially stronger than just a single in-game year earlier.

Unless there is more side content/route, either to provide new 'victory condition' (akin to Civ series) alternatives or ways to make that late-game act more like the 'prestige/newstory+' by extending the early/mid-game content and challenge, late-game as it is will always be an issue.

 

[Retrobarbaari]

Yes, that is what your position is, I understand that. The reality is that BL is not coded in that manner, it is coded to make the AI seek *revenge* and to think it has a chance because its generals are still free.

I don't know how the tribute system is in 1.x.x as I play still e.1.8.1. But if it is still the same as in the early access version, then...
it's coded bat**** stupid.
Revenge my backside. When the enemy has lost way more fiefs and troops, when you are stronger than the enemy, it is incredibly stupid you have to pay tribute to the enemy. There is no defending it.

 

[five bucks]

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Trust, but verify." ?

Could you answer the questions though?

Has Taleworlds stated the game is meant to be perpetual? Why is the main quest focused around conquering the world if we're not meant to do that?

You're not being punished for winning; you are given new challenges. If you want to "win more", tackle those challenges. If you don't, don't.

Is *hunting down every noble of an entire kingdom* grindy?

...yes?

It isn't challenging to hunt down the last noble of a kingdom because they pose 0 threat to you. It just takes a lot of time. That's grind.

I can't believe how little embracing of the realism of the game people do. What is your loop? "Oops, I win because I have adjusted all the levers to my own specific liking"? Killing people and taking their stuff should be hard, and not what you expect. Some of you are out here wanting not to play the game. Not the bugs or the cruft, but the game. The game is hard, and when you have all their nobles in jail, you are rewarded with their pathetic 20-man bands terrorizing your villages until you round them up again. Just like real life.

My desired loop is:

1: Fight battle of thousands of enemies (challenging)
2: they raise another wave of thousand man doomstacks, beat those too (challenging)
3: siege their castles (challenging)
4: the scrappy remainder of their kingdom either pays me tribute to not be destroyed outright, or alternately they could collapse (like it is in Warband)
5: I move onto the next (actually challenging) enemy
6: rinse and repeat until all 8 factions destroyed and game won
7: start new playthrough as a different culture

I don't see how being punished for winning or, alternatively, spending hours moving around in the world map to kill the remaining non-threatening parties adds fun or challenge to the game loop - could you explain how?

If Bannerlord was going to be an endless game then I would want credible threats, such as half my kingdom breaking off to declare civil war on my clan, or external invasions. But since it doesn't have any long-term credible threats that are an actual challenge, there's no point dragging out a playthrough.

Delete your account if you want to take that away from us.

Which "us" are you referring to? I've seen many people say they hate the way tribute calculation doesn't work right now. That's where I got all those screenshots from.

 

[Mad Vader]

Has Taleworlds stated the game is meant to be perpetual? Why is the main quest focused around conquering the world if we're not meant to do that?

Excellent question, and I'm sure you can find hints in dev statements (mex?) that this is indeed their intention, to prolong the game artificially with grinding endless battles. That was part of their endgame "design" in Warband too.
Why is this a good thing, I fail to understand. There's indeed a group of players who prefer an endless campaign with their favorite character, but normal people like a satisfying closure more.

 

[Bluko88]

I'm losing track which are the troll accounts around here.

You should maintain a database of trolls, like we were all supposed to for all our Early Access/Release problems!

Why is this a good thing, I fail to understand. There's indeed a group of players who prefer an endless campaign with their favorite character, but normal people like a satisfying closure more.

That would be okay, except you basically win at a certain point anyways. If it was legitimately hard to conquer all Calradia (like due to constant Civil Wars) this could be sort of justified.

Problem is everything is clearly very "placeholder". TW can't be bothered to add in Alliances, Civil Wars, Non-Agression Pacts. So in order to maintain balance they just make the A.I. go full retard, which sort of works for A.I., but is an absolute terrible player experience. The fact so much of the game is effectively incomplete after nearly 3 years is mind boggling. The only thing more boggling is all the Copium around here, but I think it's more people just really enjoy being contrarian.

Currently in Bannerlord all shields are classed as "large shields". Now there are two more categories which some shields are moved into:

"Small" - Better weight and speed. Worse coverage. Normal HP. Most targe and adarga shields are in this category.
"Light" - Better weight and speed. Normal coverage. Worse HP. Most cavalry, heater and wicker shields are in this category.
"Large" - Worse weight and speed. Better coverage. Normal HP. Most kite, pavise and round shields are in this category.

Well you inspired me enough to finally attempt a Shield Mod. Opted for a more typical kind of Small, Medium, Large distinction though (even if not actually displayed as such). Seems to be working, though I have not tested it a great deal so I'd welcome any feedback:

Reworked Shields

Changes various shield stats to more sensible values

www.nexusmods.com

 

[five bucks]

You should maintain a database of trolls, like we were all supposed to for all our Early Access/Release problems!


That would be okay, except you basically win at a certain point anyways. If it was legitimately hard to conquer all Calradia (like due to constant Civil Wars) this could be sort of justified.

Problem is everything is clearly very "placeholder". TW can't be bothered to add in Alliances, Civil Wars, Non-Agression Pacts. So in order to maintain balance they just make the A.I. go full retard, which sort of works for A.I., but is an absolute terrible player experience. The fact so much of the game is effectively incomplete after nearly 3 years is mind boggling. The only thing more boggling is all the Copium around here, but I think it's more people just really enjoy being contrarian.



Well you inspired me enough to finally attempt a Shield Mod. Opted for a more typical kind of Small, Medium, Large distinction though (even if not actually displayed as such). Seems to be working, though I have not tested it a great deal so I'd welcome any feedback:

Reworked Shields

Changes various shield stats to more sensible values

www.nexusmods.com

Nice work! I like the application of a consistent formula, which I considered but was too lazy to figure out.

 

[five bucks]

I wonder what 1.1.1 is going to have in it.

We know that the three remaining features TW have confirmed are:
- ordering formations to attack specific enemies
- pushing down manned siege ladders
- civil wars/claimants

And confirmed areas they are looking at balancing/bugfixing are:

- auto-battle-resolution,
- settlement projects
- multiplayer classes and modes
- multiplayer taunts and maps
- diplomacy decision making
- the clan-kingdom lifecycle
- the mission weather system (presumably rain)

but is any of this list going to make it into the patch?

 

[Axxoy]

Problem is everything is clearly very "placeholder". TW can't be bothered to add in Alliances, Civil Wars, Non-Agression Pacts. So in order to maintain balance they just make the A.I. go full retard, which sort of works for A.I., but is an absolute terrible player experience. The fact so much of the game is effectively incomplete after nearly 3 years is mind boggling. The only thing more boggling is all the Copium around here, but I think it's more people just really enjoy being contrarian.

This. I always say that the game is made for AI. Player is powerless, no way to interfere with anything and feel like youre doing an impact. AI is just doing its own thing, going around like a headless chicken throwing you doomstacks and thats it. As you said absolutely horrible player experience, the game looks like its AI vs AI medieval war simulation. I agree with everything feeling very "placeholder", that was especially concerning and true during the early stages of Early Access when we realized they were trying to fix the systems instead of implementing more in depth ones, so they basically tried to make placeholder functions work properly, as a result, they do not. 11 years of development and 3 years of EA on top of that, and people still defend this game like its the next best thing since the sliced bread, it doesnt help everyone become instant fanboys just because TW threw in an extremely shallow version of Fourberie. And I have no clue why people give TW a pass when they openly lied with the game being Early Access when it was in fact feature complete BETA release -since during EA we only got few voiced lines as new content- we all tested the game for console release. I was really expecting a bigger backlash but everyone is either completely unaware of the things that went on or just ignoring the issue.

 

[JunKeteer]

I wonder what 1.1.1 is going to have in it.

We know that the three remaining features TW have confirmed are:
- ordering formations to attack specific enemies
- pushing down manned siege ladders
- civil wars/claimants

Didn't know they were working on being able to target specific enemies; hope that actual comes to fruition. I'm guessing they needed the banners stuff implemented (for however their devs were thinking of coding it in).