Punish "Deserter" Captains? Addressing lone wolfing in multiplayer.

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This is why I also agree that Ai improvement and better player control over the Ai should be the #1 priority when we talk about fixing issues like this, rather than implementing restrictions to the player. It's not the players fault the Ai is stupid, don't punish us for knowing about a weakness and then exploiting that weakness to win. Improve the Ai so that the weakness no longer exists and you will solve the problem.

Yeah I can agree that is a much better approach and should always be how we fix problems. Not by restriction but improving exploited mechanics.
 
If you imposed this restriction here are just some of the things you would no longer be able to do as a captain:
1. Turn enemy shields.
2. Lure enemy Ai away from a fight.
3. Distract a group of archers.
4. Annihilate enemy troops while your Ai remains in superior positioning.
5. Bait skirmisher units into wasting ammo.
6. Capture flags while your units remain with the rest of your team.
7. Utilize high ground to gain a tactical view of the battlefield and command your troops remotely.
8. Hold off enemy units so that your archer units can create distance to kite.
9. Distract enemy captains, preventing them from getting kills and commanding their units.

The list goes on. Changes like this have a bigger impact on gameplay variety and the core mechanics of captain mode than i think people realize, and are not simple fixes like some people have proposed. All of the things I listed above I believe add value to captain mode and make it a more enjoyable experience as a result, to remove these features and implement restrictions on player choice and strategic options would make the mode more simplistic and un-enjoyable in my opinion.

If this is what is considered skillful or legit to do in captain mode, abusing the braindead **** AI then it will remain the meme mode it is. I would rather see AI improvements as well but that's just not gonna happen overnight. A quick simple fix is the NW method of making you do less damage the further you are from your unit. This would allow you to still "cheese" (As I see it you are basically cheesing the AI with the above "strategies") but then you can no longer go around chopping down half a unit just to piss people off.
 
If this is what is considered skillful or legit to do in captain mode, abusing the braindead **** AI then it will remain the meme mode it is. I would rather see AI improvements as well but that's just not gonna happen overnight. A quick simple fix is the NW method of making you do less damage the further you are from your unit. This would allow you to still "cheese" (As I see it you are basically cheesing the AI with the above "strategies") but then you can no longer go around chopping down half a unit just to piss people off.

Captain is looked down upon because the current meta is giant shock inf infantry blob of brainless death. Has nothing to do with a single player making your guys face the wrong way.

Fix the meta and captain honestly has extreme spectator and esport potential. The most Mount&Blade has seen.
 
Captain is looked down upon because the current meta is giant shock inf infantry blob of brainless death. Has nothing to do with a single player making your guys face the wrong way.

Fix the meta and captain honestly has extreme spectator and esport potential. The most Mount&Blade has seen.

It was looked down on before that too, I remember archer spam being the meta too. Of course, most of those things on the list can be prevented with some micromanagment but that's got to be frustrating as a casual player not knowing how to make your guys stop turning their entire line to look at one guy while they get ripped apart by archers.
 
Improve the Ai so that the weakness no longer exists and you will solve the problem.

Although I agree with the sentiment. In fairness to TWs I haven't see an AI, that includes the 'I' part. I think we some way off an actual AI. Something I expect out of the reach of TWs. This is something Psychologists, Neuroscientists and Programmers etc have been attempting since the the turn of the century. This only leaves us with simple fixes.



The issue is comparing Warcraft with Bannerlord, leave fantasy to the mod developers. They will come in time. I understand Bannerlord is not completely accurate. But balancing between fun & realism, Isn't the same as complete fantasy.
 
If you imposed this restriction here are just some of the things you would no longer be able to do as a captain:
1. Turn enemy shields.
2. Lure enemy Ai away from a fight.
3. Distract a group of archers.
4. Annihilate enemy troops while your Ai remains in superior positioning.
5. Bait skirmisher units into wasting ammo.
6. Capture flags while your units remain with the rest of your team.
7. Utilize high ground to gain a tactical view of the battlefield and command your troops remotely.
8. Hold off enemy units so that your archer units can create distance to kite.
9. Distract enemy captains, preventing them from getting kills and commanding their units.

I think you're grossly underestimating the range of the "follow me" limitation. I'm thinking 30-40% of most maps. Which would allow:

1. Still possible within effective range.
2. Still possible.
3. Possible if the archers are within reasonable distance. This prevents players from splitting off completely from their cav to have 1 player unit distract an entire regiment of archers.
4. I don't know what this means.
5. Irrelevant because no one lets their troop waste ammo like that.
6. Still possible unless there's a huge distance between you.
7. Dumb.
8. Still possible; but irrelevant unless the enemy is sleeping on charge.
9. Still possible.

The problem isn't that skill can exist within certain gameplay parameters, but rather the parameters of gameplay are harmful to the concept of the game. Captain should be about tactics and troop movement rather than watching players 1vX an entire army.

That's not just cav: that is the optimal way to play as any class, it's just that most of the players currently suck. Watching (some people) play was painful because they hit unmoving allied bots half of the time. You can with practice rather easily 1v10 or 1v20 entire swarms of bots, it's just that no one does because they don't know how. I haven't seen any of the basic strategies used in Full Invasion utilized in Captain yet, but 2 players would be able to decimate almost any number of infantry bots just by themselves and proper movement.

You could take any game and broaden it's parameters to allow the players to have more freedom and "skill" but the games quickly break down. In CSGO or Valorent you could allow walking through walls. More skill and more freedom? Yes. But the concept of the game would be broken down. You could allow players in MOBAS massive windows where towers don't damage them to allow teamfights at any point of the map at any point in time. More skill and freedom? Yes. But the flow of the game would be destroyed along with any sense of progression.

Games exist within certain boundaries for a reason, to curate gameplay to a specific experience. Allowing players to 1vX entire armies is a clear breach of the boundaries that make sense for Captain. Captain won't grow if people start to watch a tournament (which is impossible by the way since everyone deletes their f****** VODs) and what they see is players gallivanting by themselves around the map whittling down armies by themselves. They want to see tactics and strategy.

If you want to have skilled solo expression look to Skirmish. Let Captain be about controlling bots.

Captain is looked down upon because the current meta is giant shock inf infantry blob of brainless death. Has nothing to do with a single player making your guys face the wrong way.

Fix the meta and captain honestly has extreme spectator and esport potential. The most Mount&Blade has seen.

WE FOUND WHO WROTE THE ARTICLE
 
I'de be interested to hear what the players over at Captain's League think about implementing a change like this. I don't think they would be in favor of this restriction to be honest. I know I definitely don't want to see it implemented. Might take a poll and see what peoples opinions are since lord knows we won't get them to comment here.
 
While I agree that many of these points need to be there some of them should'nt. They are exploits of an extremly stupid AI wich needs to be fixed rather than defended. In my opinion.

Turning AI shields as an example is outright bad AI design and should not happen. Archers should be forced to great possitioning and tactical volleys rather then who can exploit the retarded AI the best.
How do you think this could be fixed? If the shields DON'T turn, the player can hack at the units backs and kill them that way. The shield turning is VERY hard to fix without gaining another negative trait.
 
How do you think this could be fixed? If the shields DON'T turn, the player can hack at the units backs and kill them that way. The shield turning is VERY hard to fix without gaining another negative trait.
I agree, I really don’t think the shield turning is a huge issue. It’s a good play by the other team if they can use the shield turning to their advantage. On the other hand, smart captains would be wary of this and set their units to face one direction. Sure casual players may not know this, but it’s just part of the learning curve (like knowing to turn off fire at will and getting out of shield wall formation when engaging the enemy).

I do think it would help to have smarter AI, or like someone suggested, giving the Captains’ more control over their units. For example, having the ability to tell archers to direct fire at a certain unit or given area (similar to in Total War games.)

Rogue cav captains are extremely annoying. Regardless though, I think the natural factor of them risking losing their unit because it’s discovered by the enemy while they’re away, as well as it causing their team to lose the game by being down a unit balances it out.
 
Relatively new to MP in Bannerlord but played Warband and commander mode in Napoleonic Wars extensively. I see that a pervasive tactic in multiplayer Bannerlord, at least in Captain mode, is still to camp your unit off in some corner, lone wolf around to pick off enemy bots until you get killed, take control of your next unit, and repeat ad nauseam.

I've always found that the majority of players not doing this find it derivative and borderline exploitative. It is annoying both to play against, since it forces you to babysit your units against infiltrators, and as a teammate, since by not participating and refusing to commit your units you undercut other players ability to engage in a pitched fight. You're basically turning it into a duel mode with multiple lives.

On the other hand, it's also incredibly useful to be able to scout out away from your unit obviously.

A very simple mechanic that would be easy to tune, and provide clear UI warnings to players, would be that if you leave some radius of your unit, you lose control and they start to issue their own orders, either moving toward an objective or target some enemy unit. An extreme punishment would be permanent removal of command, so that once you die, you cannot take control of a new unit.

In short, you should have consequences for abandoning your unit.

I think the real problem here, as others have said, is the AI is so dumb if you bring them with you they will just get themselves killed in a matter of minutes. I agree, parking cav and going around picking people off isn't right, it takes away from the whole idea of captain mode and instead turns it into skirmish mode essentially. BUT, if I take my cav with me, they will without a doubt run into a group of spears and get themselves all murdered. Even if I put them on charge they will go and get themselves killed. They need to have better AI pathing to know better than charge into someone with a spear pointed at them.
 
no double posting
Relatively new to MP in Bannerlord but played Warband and commander mode in Napoleonic Wars extensively. I see that a pervasive tactic in multiplayer Bannerlord, at least in Captain mode, is still to camp your unit off in some corner, lone wolf around to pick off enemy bots until you get killed, take control of your next unit, and repeat ad nauseam.

I've always found that the majority of players not doing this find it derivative and borderline exploitative. It is annoying both to play against, since it forces you to babysit your units against infiltrators, and as a teammate, since by not participating and refusing to commit your units you undercut other players ability to engage in a pitched fight. You're basically turning it into a duel mode with multiple lives.

On the other hand, it's also incredibly useful to be able to scout out away from your unit obviously.

A very simple mechanic that would be easy to tune, and provide clear UI warnings to players, would be that if you leave some radius of your unit, you lose control and they start to issue their own orders, either moving toward an objective or target some enemy unit. An extreme punishment would be permanent removal of command, so that once you die, you cannot take control of a new unit.

In short, you should have consequences for abandoning your unit.
Bad idea, if a person leaves his unit alone go kill it. Why is this so unfair? People who leave their units alone all the time don't do well in the game, if you played the game long enough you would no this.

Ramboing might not be effective but it's godamn annoying having half your archer unit taken out by one lone guy on a horse. And don't say "play better" they are on fire at will but aren't hitting him. And I waste arrows to kill one dude and he comes back again and again keeping me busy while his 2 handed teammates get closer and wreck my team.

There is literally no reason in a competitive game for your units not to be beside you in the first place, so I see no harm in punishing or restricting people to having their unit close to them at all times.
An easy way to counter a single cav killing half your units is to take cav archer! You would do that wouldn't you noob. Anyways PLAY BETTER, DON'T TAKE ARCHERS
 
An easy way to counter a single cav killing half your units is to take cav archer! You would do that wouldn't you noob. Anyways PLAY BETTER, DON'T TAKE ARCHERS
Tbh I'm always happy to see some mounted archers on the opposing team as cav. It's like catching free range chicken.
 
Relatively new to MP in Bannerlord but played Warband and commander mode in Napoleonic Wars extensively. I see that a pervasive tactic in multiplayer Bannerlord, at least in Captain mode, is still to camp your unit off in some corner, lone wolf around to pick off enemy bots until you get killed, take control of your next unit, and repeat ad nauseam.

I've always found that the majority of players not doing this find it derivative and borderline exploitative. It is annoying both to play against, since it forces you to babysit your units against infiltrators, and as a teammate, since by not participating and refusing to commit your units you undercut other players ability to engage in a pitched fight. You're basically turning it into a duel mode with multiple lives.

On the other hand, it's also incredibly useful to be able to scout out away from your unit obviously.

A very simple mechanic that would be easy to tune, and provide clear UI warnings to players, would be that if you leave some radius of your unit, you lose control and they start to issue their own orders, either moving toward an objective or target some enemy unit. An extreme punishment would be permanent removal of command, so that once you die, you cannot take control of a new unit.

In short, you should have consequences for abandoning your unit.

If you do not want people to rambo as cav then you need to look at why they are doing it before coming up with nonsensical mechanics to punish the behavior. In the current balance cav is pretty easy to kill for most units. In order to be effective, cav players often have to weave around units in order to pick off the open troops. The cav AI are simply not capable of this; They run out and get stopped by any hobo with a javelin stab or spear thrust. With only 8 units to spare then why would you let them all die in the first 30 seconds compared to holding them back? The main reason for holding back the cav, is that the mounted AI can not be relied on to survive or be effective in much other than sponging damage, stopping archer fire, turning shields, and messing with the ground troops AI by forcing them use the wrong weapons along with pulling aggro.

Cav is the counter to your archers; You can not expect to run archers and destroy everything, every game. You need to adapt to the other team's comp in order to win. Try taking archers with spears, playing cav yourself, switching to a unit with pikes, or positioning your archers better.

The main reason why rambo cav is not a problem in bannerlord, is the morale system. Capture points and just wait. Cav alone can rarely win against a team with good defense holding points. Another reason why it is not a problem is that when you leave all of your troops in one spot away from you, they are extremely vulnerable.

Tbh I'm always happy to see some mounted archers on the opposing team as cav. It's like catching free range chicken.

He was joking around with the horse archer suggestion.
 
If you do not want people to rambo as cav then you need to look at why they are doing it before coming up with nonsensical mechanics to punish the behavior. In the current balance cav is pretty easy to kill for most units. In order to be effective, cav players often have to weave around units in order to pick off the open troops. The cav AI are simply not capable of this; They run out and get stopped by any hobo with a javelin stab or spear thrust. With only 8 units to spare then why would you let them all die in the first 30 seconds compared to holding them back? The main reason for holding back the cav, is that the mounted AI can not be relied on to survive or be effective in much other than sponging damage, stopping archer fire, turning shields, and messing with the ground troops AI by forcing them use the wrong weapons along with pulling aggro.

Cav is the counter to your archers; You can not expect to run archers and destroy everything, every game. You need to adapt to the other team's comp in order to win. Try taking archers with spears, playing cav yourself, switching to a unit with pikes, or positioning your archers better.

The main reason why rambo cav is not a problem in bannerlord, is the morale system. Capture points and just wait. Cav alone can rarely win against a team with good defense holding points. Another reason why it is not a problem is that when you leave all of your troops in one spot away from you, they are extremely vulnerable.



He was joking around with the horse archer suggestion.
Hard to catch sarcasm on the internet.. :grin:
 
It was looked down on before that too, I remember archer spam being the meta too. Of course, most of those things on the list can be prevented with some micromanagment but that's got to be frustrating as a casual player not knowing how to make your guys stop turning their entire line to look at one guy while they get ripped apart by archers.
I guess I will tell you how to play archer. Palatine take menavlion, take kahns, archers take pikes. When rambo cav comes in f1 f3 then when they leave f1 f2 rinse and repeat. Learn how to play archers plus I don't know why you are even taking archers to begin with since the new patch came out all archers are garbage.
 
I guess I will tell you how to play archer. Palatine take menavlion, take kahns, archers take pikes. When rambo cav comes in f1 f3 then when they leave f1 f2 rinse and repeat. Learn how to play archers plus I don't know why you are even taking archers to begin with since the new patch came out all archers are garbage.

Thanks for your advice(as if I didn't do this anyways you plank) I haven't played captain since beta, because I made my mind up that Captain is a complete meme mode. These same guys who solo my unit of amoebas can't even block a feint so why should I waste my time anymore in a mode that basically boils down to cheesing at this point in time.
 
Thanks for your advice(as if I didn't do this anyways you plank) I haven't played captain since beta, because I made my mind up that Captain is a complete meme mode. These same guys who solo my unit of amoebas can't even block a feint so why should I waste my time anymore in a mode that basically boils down to cheesing at this point in time.
And the people you are talking about would say, "This amoeba archer can't even survive a solo cav player". Playing captains like it is a duel obviously isn't going to work. If you do not want to take the time to get good at captains that is fine, however, calling people "planks" and "amoebas" because of your own inability to survive a guy on a horse doesn't do much to strengthen your argument. :LOL:
 
Thanks for your advice(as if I didn't do this anyways you plank) I haven't played captain since beta, because I made my mind up that Captain is a complete meme mode. These same guys who solo my unit of amoebas can't even block a feint so why should I waste my time anymore in a mode that basically boils down to cheesing at this point in time.
Then why are posting anyways who needs your input on a game you don't play. Shut up and move along. Who's the plank now posting on game you don't play and never could play good enough.
 
And the people you are talking about would say, "This amoeba archer can't even survive a solo cav player". Playing captains like it is a duel obviously isn't going to work. If you do not want to take the time to get good at captains that is fine, however, calling people "planks" and "amoebas" because of your own inability to survive a guy on a horse doesn't do much to strengthen your argument. :LOL:

Amoeba as in, retarded AI. I'm LITERALLY advocating for it to be NOT like duels, where a single guy if he's good enough can wipe a unit by himself. You can literally walk up, and walk around a unit in circles spamming left swing and the AI is too ****ing stupid to do anything about it.

Then why are posting anyways who needs your input on a game you don't play. Shut up and move along. Who's the plank now posting on game you don't play and never could play good enough.

Jeez, cause I dunno, I might play it if it's fixed?

Very simple fix, Napoleonic Wars had it, the further you are from your unit the less damage you do. And that game had AI that could randomly headshot you with guns and they still needed it. I don't need to discuss this further.
 
Amoeba as in, retarded AI. I'm LITERALLY advocating for it to be NOT like duels, where a single guy if he's good enough can wipe a unit by himself. You can literally walk up, and walk around a unit in circles spamming left swing and the AI is too ****ing stupid to do anything about it.



Jeez, cause I dunno, I might play it if it's fixed?

Very simple fix, Napoleonic Wars had it, the further you are from your unit the less damage you do. And that game had AI that could randomly headshot you with guns and they still needed it. I don't need to discuss this further.
You also had more horses in Napoleonic wars, bigger maps, and no morale limits. If you seriously can not counter a cav player the problem is not with the balance it is with the player. I fail to see how the unit which has a primary goal of stopping archers, would be considered overpowered because it can stop archers. The usefulness of taking cav over a ground unit in captains mode is already pretty bad after the update; With the suggestions I am seeing here they may as well remove it all together instead of implementing this crap.

I hate to say it but I think this entire thread boils down to 'git gud'
 
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