[Poll] Multiplayer Discussion Thread

[DLEGION]

i forgot to mention the obvious.....
customizable banners, and i mean i put my own image in game, in a small format like 512x512, the same as games like Dawn Of War II.
and players should choose where to place it, like on shield, on armor, on pauldrons (or everywhere) ecc...

 

[Weren]

i forgot to mention the obvious.....
customizable banners, and i mean i put my own image in game, in a small format like 512x512, the same as games like Dawn Of War II.
and players should choose where to place it, like on shield, on armor, on pauldrons (or everywhere) ecc...

To expand on customizable banners, also please have an option for the player to see all other friendly players with just the team banner.
Custom banners are cool for distinguishing certain players from others, but often times I wish people had more uniform look.

 

[SeánC]

A speaking system;

You press V and talk to anyone around you with a specific radius. 5 meters etc.

It should be switched to on-off(the part you hear) to prevent trolling of trolls.

Just like a Teamspeak. But in specific radius.

OR

A Voip System like Battlefield. A squad system for this maybe? 

Please, no

Apart from the fact it is totally unnecessary considering ts, discord and steam etc give the functionality to speak with anyone you want to speak with, much larger companies have been struggling with how to deal with the toxic atmosphere engendered by in game voip for years. The loss of community and sales is not worth it.

Yea dear god please do not add in-game voice chat as Aero said it can cause quite the toxic atmosphere in-game. Look at games who have it: Call of Duty, Battlefield, CSGO, TF2, Overwatch the list goes on. Although you could argue that these communities where toxic anyway, ours to an extent is as well ergo adding voice chat just gives the toxic people a larger voice.

 

[Silen]

I must agree with the above.

I've already met my share of toxic people on Warband by using chat only. Now imagine if these people had voice chat. It doesn't add to anything and often you just end up muting people. If you want to talk with someone, you can just use teamspeak, discord and whatnot. I don't see voip necessary.

 

[kalarhan]

Chat should be replaced by emoticons 

 

[Reapy]

Yeah I basically hate random voice and there are already so many great voice comm software packages out there. Why put another month or more of work on them? And, honestly it just makes more sense for servers to have a discord link when you log in if you want to chat.

Squad sort of works because it's a niche thing that people get looking for a specific experience, and most people getting that game are all looking for the same thing. That has never been the case with warband.

 

[Weren]

I could see mods like Persistent World greatly benefiting from a 3D locational VOIP, freeing you to actually interact while you say stuff instead of awkwardly freezing for 30 seconds to type in your message.
For the native game however, I don't see it as important.

 

[SeánC]

Chat should be replaced by emoticons 

Emoticons have to be the worst cultural phenomenon since the Spanish boot.

 

[Varrak]

I hope we will have one special team chat box in Captain gamemode, for discussing team's tactic and who will get what etc in the team picking screen.

Also when one team won the match, next match shouldn't start  immediately, but team should have 15-20 seconds to celebrate in map.

 

[DLEGION]

well...the idea is not mine, i mean i just recycle the idea behind the great Jedi Knight series:
SPECIALIZATION POINTS !
so everyone is equal in MP, there is no "archer" or "cavalry" or "footmen", its just how you spend your (server set amount) points !
exactly the same as having money to buy equipment, thats the "money to buy skills".
so everyone can invest points where he wants to, not being forced into pre-made choiches.
and like equipment, if you dont like a setup, you can always change it for your next life.

 

[Lagstro]

A tentative 2-part suggestion for Bannerlord, I'd really like to hear some opinions on it first.

To begin, I hope infantry in bannerlord move faster than archers in general as they do in warband so that archers can't run away from infantry, but there is a fair case to be made that infantry wearing heavy armor should be outrun by a lightly armored archer, though it is both lame to experience and watch even though it does make sense.

My suggestion is that infantry should be given an exclusive key activate-able ability that gives a speed boost to forward movement (about 30-50% or whatever is needed to just barely meet it's intended purpose) that lasts ~ 4 seconds and can only be activated ~ once every 40 seconds. Its 'necessary' purpose is to be used mainly as a chasing mechanic against close proximity lighty armored archers and lighty armored dismounted cavalry that may try to abuse the fact that infantry is wearing a lot of armor and can be outran indefinitely. It would help give infantry an opportunity to force such cowards into a melee confrontation given they've probably deserved it after getting close enough to them in the first place. The reason that only forward movement should be boosted is that otherwise this mechanic could be abused to back-peddle quickly to be temporarily unreachable, and then move forward quickly to land a hit, in other words, to prevent a cheap and unfair melee out-ranging tactic.

The thing is that in unison with this, something else NEEDS to be done in bannerlord to fix a problem that warband currently has and why it wouldn't function fairly without it. That is that cavalry and archers do such little melee damage on foot that they can't really consistently damage heavy armor and glance far too often with most weapons against heavy armors.

For that, the second suggestion is that the lowest damaging weapons available in multiplayer still be able to consistently do enough damage in the hands of archers and dismounted cav to at least interrupt heavy armored infantry with solid hits and preferably do fair damage too. There is this easy, nasty tactic that even I abuse that is really stupid and makes me feel dirty when I play as inf and it is to simply spam down archers and dismounted cavalry while wearing heavy armor because you KNOW that no matter what weapon they are using (very few exceptions), they have a high chance of glancing on you, especially if you are face hugging them. This results in you being able to throw a swing out a little after they threw theirs out, their attack glancing on you and doing no damage, and your attack becoming an unblockable high damage hit. This practically allows the heavy armor to completely win the fight for you, requiring absolutely no real skill.

Heavy armor should at most help you to substantially reduce damages and give you a decent (and fair) advantage in melee engagements, but they should not WIN the engagements for you. That's part of the reason why archers and dismounted cav choose to run from heavily armored inf in the first place, it isn't always cowardice, but rather they legitimately CAN'T win that fight at all, no matter how skilled they are.

These two suggestions combined give infantry a 'buff/special ability' which allows them to situationally force individuals into melee combat, but thanks to the 2nd suggestion, it has little to no chance of becoming an OP/abusable mechanic, as the victims will still always have a real chance to fight back and win if they're substantially more skilled in that melee combat instance.

The ability could of course creatively be used for more than just chasing down retreating opponents too. It could be used to close the gap between them and the enemy a little quicker, perhaps even reach a teammate in need of help a little quicker, I'm sure players could find some solid uses for it, but it still wouldn't be a troublesome OP mechanic. It doesn't really seem difficult to implement either.

 

[Lord Rich]

@Lagstro, I could take or leave a charge mechanic, would be fine either way. Personally I am not too bothered by infs mobility against rangers, if you chase one down they can't shoot and run away and the archer is generally much more vulnerable to cav than the inf is when that's happening.

I agree that some of the damage output against armour is ridiculous, I would prefer mechanics that are more risk/reward for overcoming armour however rather than simply buffing all melee to be capable of matching infantry. I was playing around recently balancing weapons and I made the vaegir maces do more damage and have more weight, because of the way armour works they do similar damage to scimi's at low-mid tier armour but they continue doing pretty much the same damage on high armour while the scimi damage falls off. This gives the player a choice since they can take the more effective scimitar (faster, longer reach) OR can take the more specialised anti armour mace.

Alternatively there are other things like certain attacks which are telegraphed doing extra damage against armour.

 

[Lagstro]

Personally I am not too bothered by infs mobility against rangers, if you chase one down they can't shoot and run away and the archer is generally much more vulnerable to cav than the inf is when that's happening.

I think it's important that every individual class has a viable way to defeat another on its own; teamwork to be left as a way to make killing much more efficient, not an absolute necessity.

I agree that some of the damage output against armour is ridiculous, I would prefer mechanics that are more risk/reward for overcoming armour however rather than simply buffing all melee to be capable of matching infantry.

Just to be clear, in my suggestion's case, if the archers and cav melee stats need to be buffed to make them effective against heavily armored infantry, infantry should equally be buffed further to maintain clear melee superiority. At no point should a dismounted cav or ranger actually "match" an infantry in melee, but simply have an actual chance of beating them even at the lowest disadvantage allowable by the game, given that the archer is clearly leagues superior in melee skill to the heavily armored infantry. At no point should an infantry just automatically win a melee engagement against another player just for picking the infantry class and obtaining heavy armor. The heavy armor and likely better weapons, melee stats, and health should give infantry a big enough buffer zone that they could be considerably worse than their ranger or dismounted cavalry opponents in terms of melee skill, but still be able to win. This buffer zone only being fair for infantry for giving up access to effective long range weapons and high mobility horses.

I was playing around recently balancing weapons and I made the vaegir maces do more damage and have more weight, because of the way armour works they do similar damage to scimi's at low-mid tier armour but they continue doing pretty much the same damage on high armour while the scimi damage falls off. This gives the player a choice since they can take the more effective scimitar (faster, longer reach) OR can take the more specialised anti armour mace.

Alternatively there are other things like certain attacks which are telegraphed doing extra damage against armour.

I feel like your suggestion is at least partially driven by the admirable effort to make all available weapons have specific and necessary uses so that they eventually all get used at some point, but the problem I see with it is that by doing that, you would create a problem where you would at times force archers to fight against infantry (and cav :/) with presumably shorter and slower weapons, on top of already having presumably worse melee stats and movement acceleration to begin with. Even more of a problem with that is that it becomes increasingly more unlikely to not get outranged by good infantry players if you are trying to fight them with a slow short weapon when you have higher ping, ping being an unavoidable factor in the game that should be taken into consideration. It's a pile of factors that still add up to a very unfair fight in general and possibly impossible fight depending on ping. Dismounted cav could technically run into this same problem, but it may not be as frequent since they will be on their horse most of the time and will be dealing insane amounts of damage no matter what weapon they are using, so choosing a mace over a sword wouldn't be as drastic a decision to make.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "attacks which are telegraphed doing extra damage against armour" though, could you elaborate more on that for me please? 

 

[The Meddling Monk]

I hope we will have one special team chat box in Captain gamemode, for discussing team's tactic and who will get what etc in the team picking screen.

It would also be nice to have some sort of drawing or marking tool, so you could show your teammates where you want them to go / fight.
(Kind of like the drawing tool in Total War MP games)

 

[Reapy]

Interesting stuff!

I would not want a charge ability, if only because I saw (even with a long cooldown) what having a sprint did in war of the roses. You basically had the same combat but you had to keep shift pressed down to have really long attack ranges and you were swooping around like fighter planes.  I think having it there you'd end up saving it for a fight and doing some sort of charge spin around behind your back move every 40 sec, then go defensive till it was back up again. Sort of a similar argument used to not have stamina.

I think however you can do what some other games have done and have a pursuit mechanic. Where if you are in someone's wake while they are running away you get a speed boost to catch up with them. That way, you can run away a little bit, because you ought to be able to run away, but you can't just keep doing it to the point of being annoying and not having them nipping on your heels. I think that gives off the best of both worlds there.

For the armor, that is an important point. One of the things war of the roses failed at is having good armor values. When you had starter weapons and someone had plate on, you could only damage them with thrust attacks for pierce damage. It sucked because now you can't use your directional attacks and are stuck doing a telegraphed move that is easily blocked, otherwise you are hitting for next to no damage and that just isn't fun.

I know there was always the idea of heavy armor creating slow movement but I believe that was an early beta change where people didn't pick heavy armor because it was too slow and they were getting kited. I actually really like the current warband movement speeds, heavy armor still used to throw me off since I didn't have it on that much, it was enough to mess you up in combat so you'd feel the affect, but not enough that you can be kited.

I really like rich's idea in having specialized weapons for situations. I think it is a really interesting option as an archer to choose a pierce/blunt weapon that isn't as effective yet will help with heavy armor if you know you are up against it, vs picking a light and fast weapon that will be better to duel with but will struggle with heavy armor. Obviously those numbers need to be tweaked out and a really good point that the trade off weapon shouldn't be garbage, just disadvantaged.

If there is one thing learned from the first planetside is that you can get more powerful by just having versatility and not a bigger power spike. If i have both the piercing weapon and slashing weapon I am prepared for more situations, so that is a pretty key balance thing to think about.

One other thing to consider is that IMHO weapon length is one of the most important stats. It gives you auto initiative (+first strike stat! )because you can theoretically hit first so you get to open with feints and decide things, and can back out and play at range / kite more.  It doesn't leave a lot of room for number tweaking.

Anyway, good stuff.

 

[Varrak]

I hope we will have one special team chat box in Captain gamemode, for discussing team's tactic and who will get what etc in the team picking screen.

It would also be nice to have some sort of drawing or marking tool, so you could show your teammates where you want them to go / fight.
(Kind of like the drawing tool in Total War MP games)

I literally though same thing yesterday    I remember my days with Total War:Arena, it was really fun to make tactics with other team members. I would love to see something like that, but it would also be a very hard work for TW to implement since their team is far way smaller than Creative Assembly. I will be happy if we get only one little team chat menu specially made for captain mode.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

A tentative 2-part suggestion for Bannerlord, I'd really like to hear some opinions on it first.

...

I would support the first suggestion of a short sprint with long cooldown. Infantry in Warband MP is easily the most frustrating class to play, and one of the biggest annoyances is how difficult it is to chase down archers who run away. A short sprint on long CD would give infantry more options in bad situations (could be useful for a quick retreat), which is something the class needs.

The pursuit mechanic mentioned by Reapy might be interesting, but I think it would be tricky to have it work smoothly in a big melee. Do you get the boost when any enemy is retreating? How far away should they be? Does having someone else in the way stop the ability? How do you define someone being in the way? Overall I think it would feel weird to have intermittent speed boosts based on events around you.


As for the second idea, I am not convinced without having played it. Why are archers and cav fighting heavy inf in melee? Likely because the team failed tactically. Inf generally have to overcome obstacles to be fighting archers and cav in melee, so there should be substantial reward for doing so. It is very annoying to play cav and lose to inf in melee due to glances, but the reality is getting dismounted should have a legitimate cost; and I'm not sure if having worse armor/shields is enough. Same is true for archer if the infantry catch up to you (somewhat difficult for heavy inf to begin with).

You mention archers/cav need a way to fight back against heavy inf, but they already have that as part of the class. Archers shoot from range and cav run them over. Their best chance to "fight back" was the whole time before the inf dismounted/caught up to them. As Azan mentioned, usage of anti-armor weapons could be more pronounced (perhaps they are pronounced enough already?). Not all factions have access to them for every class, but that likely falls more under faction balance.

 

[Lagstro]

It gets more ridiculous towards the end.

A tentative 2-part suggestion for Bannerlord, I'd really like to hear some opinions on it first.

...

As Azan mentioned, usage of anti-armor weapons could be more pronounced (perhaps they are pronounced enough already?).

The start of the vid should show that they certainly aren't pronounced enough already (at least in the hands of archers and dismounted cav), that's why he had to tweak them and buff them further to make them a reasonable choice.

As for the second idea, I am not convinced without having played it. Why are archers and cav fighting heavy inf in melee? Likely because the team failed tactically. Inf generally have to overcome obstacles to be fighting archers and cav in melee, so there should be substantial reward for doing so. It is very annoying to play cav and lose to inf in melee due to glances, but the reality is getting dismounted should have a legitimate cost; and I'm not sure if having worse armor/shields is enough. Same is true for archer if the infantry catch up to you (somewhat difficult for heavy inf to begin with).

That's why I think said it's a 2 part suggestions that should be implemented together at the same time, one without the other would not be a good idea IMO. If the first suggestion is implemented, archers and dismounted cav would be fighting heavy inf in melee because inf would now have a viable way of catching up to them, and forcing them to engage in melee, something inf (especially if heavily armored) already have a giant advantage in (weapon proficiencies that increase attack speed and damage, power strike that increases damage drastically, higher ironflesh that gives them more health, better weapons, better armor, higher athletics for better acceleration forward and backward for ranging, higher attributes that also contribute to higher health, damage, speed and acceleration, etc). Inf already have a mountain of small factors that add up to a substantial melee advantage when it comes to melee engagements as is, the only thing they need to do is reach their enemy to use it against them, and tbh, it isn't as hard as you make it sound, especially on closed maps. The only time they have many obstacles to face is when they are moving through very open areas, otherwise, they generally hug walls for cover, and get close enough for the main engagement to take less than a 15 second run, most of the time a single infantry being able to move past the main engagement and single out an archer in a corner. On top of that, melee isn't their only way of dealing damage either, they can use throwing weapons that at mid-short range can be even more effective than archery, since they release quicker and deal substantially more damage.

We already know that the draw speed has been reduced, the bows do less damage, and hopefully this changes but archers aren't even accurate from what can be seen in bannerlord footage. They are significantly weaker than their warband counterpart and should at the very least be able to fight off any form of infantry, provided they are clearly far superior in melee combat given they are able to surpass the substantial melee advantage that infantry have over them. All that is being asked is acceptable damage to even the heaviest armors available in multiplayer. In warband as clearly shown in the video, even the best weapons available to archers can't really do anything against heavy armor. Armor alone shouldn't be able to win a fight for you IMO, only greatly aid you.

 

[Guaccmoleboy]

listen lag....

u didn't compare archer damage to infantry damage in the video so how will i know how bad the damage actually is

this video is a scam!

 

[Ron Burgundy]

How the damage will be balanced along with other updates from Bannerlord isn't something I'm considering at the moment, since the actual changes are unknown and subject to change. I'm only comparing based off of what we know in Warband.


As far as damage in the video, yeah that is pretty low for the mace against heavy armor (~17 strikes with ~12 actual hits to kill). Advantage with blunt weapons should probably be a bit stronger against it.

Later in the video when you are doing fully armored huscarl (3500+ gold setup?) being attacked by a sarranid archer with a scimitar, I'm not really sure what you would expect. It would probably be better if the archer could at least do some base damage half the time, maybe glance like 1/4 swings, but yeah the archer really just won't win in such a scenario. What would you consider to be a reasonable amount of damage for the archer to do?


In my mind if you manage to get the 3500 gold for that setup (more like 4000+ if you get a helmet) archers shouldn't be able to kill you with garbage weapons for ~99% of scenarios, even if you were a less skilled player. That much gold is an ENORMOUS amount, which earns a similar amount of advantage. It'll either be a LOT of arrows, a lance, or a 2 hander that will bring you down. Do people even get the gold required for such loadouts in competitive? Sometimes, but not very often. It would likely be good to get some data on damage against more obtainable armor (swadian mail, nord mail, etc.).


However, to me this problem you describe is more about the broader snowball/gold balance in multiplayer and what should/should not be possible. It is difficult to tackle this one small component without having the context of the whole, and to be frank that is far too complicated to discuss in a forum format (this probably is as well). I will steam message thee.