Shall we talk about the paper armors?

[Honved]

The problem isn't entirely the fault of the armor values, it's that the boosted base hitpoints for ALL characters makes the armor values less important. A 45 hitpoint looter in Warband would fall after one or two hits, practically regardless of armor, while a high-tier opponent with 60-80 would be likely to survive those same hits, given even modest protection.

The combination of high base hitpoints and somewhat lower damage reduction by armor in Bannerlord combine to narrow the gap between the highest and lowest tier troops, so the looter takes almost as much damage to kill as that elite trooper. Worse, rocks and clubs are blunt weapons, and armor in BL provides very little defense against them, so why aren't the elite skirmish troops doing the sensible thing and throwing rocks?

Blaming the problem entirely on the armor values and relative protectiveness isn't the full answer, but it's part of the problem. Blaming the other poster for not agreeing with your side of an "all or nothing" argument isn't solving anything either. There's definitely a problem, but treating the symptom instead of the cause isn't necessarily the best answer.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

The problem isn't entirely the fault of the armor values, it's that the boosted base hitpoints for ALL characters makes the armor values less important. A 45 hitpoint looter in Warband would fall after one or two hits, practically regardless of armor, while a high-tier opponent with 60-80 would be likely to survive those same hits, given even modest protection.

The combination of high base hitpoints and somewhat lower damage reduction by armor in Bannerlord combine to narrow the gap between the highest and lowest tier troops, so the looter takes almost as much damage to kill as that elite trooper. Worse, rocks and clubs are blunt weapons, and armor in BL provides very little defense against them, so why aren't the elite skirmish troops doing the sensible thing and throwing rocks?

Blaming the problem entirely on the armor values and relative protectiveness isn't the full answer, but it's part of the problem. Blaming the other poster for not agreeing with your side of an "all or nothing" argument isn't solving anything either. There's definitely a problem, but treating the symptom instead of the cause isn't necessarily the best answer.

And there's also the fact that weapon damage is 2-5x higher across the board, while armor values are roughly the same as they were in Warband. No amount of armor buffing is gonna be enough to counter a 200 damage glaive, but even looter weapons do substantial damage to fully armored troops.

 

[Calabanar]

The problem isn't entirely the fault of the armor values, it's that the boosted base hitpoints for ALL characters makes the armor values less important. A 45 hitpoint looter in Warband would fall after one or two hits, practically regardless of armor, while a high-tier opponent with 60-80 would be likely to survive those same hits, given even modest protection.

The combination of high base hitpoints and somewhat lower damage reduction by armor in Bannerlord combine to narrow the gap between the highest and lowest tier troops, so the looter takes almost as much damage to kill as that elite trooper. Worse, rocks and clubs are blunt weapons, and armor in BL provides very little defense against them, so why aren't the elite skirmish troops doing the sensible thing and throwing rocks?

Blaming the problem entirely on the armor values and relative protectiveness isn't the full answer, but it's part of the problem. Blaming the other poster for not agreeing with your side of an "all or nothing" argument isn't solving anything either. There's definitely a problem, but treating the symptom instead of the cause isn't necessarily the best answer.

You are right, but that brings us to the next questions: What can Taleworlds do? What should they do?

It seems we are too far in the development process for them to consider completely revamping such an aspect of the game... And if we were to get an answer from devs, it wouldn't be surprising if we were told this is intended.

If we assume this is the case, they could "only" tweak: armor values, weapon damage values, damage&armor formulas and AI behaviour. As you stated focusing on one aspect won't fix the whole problem, but it can at least mitigate it which is... better than nothing, I guess. The devs have stated they are working on a revamp of the crafting system, perhaps this will be accompanied by some weapon stats adjustments?

I suspect changes aren't coming any time soon, especially if they do change the stats, since balancing things beforehand would then mostly be a waste of time. Buffing armor seems to be the easiest solution right now though, as the Realistic Battles Mod showcases (I am aware it changes more than armor values, but armor already does much more, perhaps even too much at high tiers I'd argue).

Finally, not to start a whole new argument but armor does poorly currently, and when we discussed the buff all he'd answer was that we were trying to make the player invincible. It's not a 0 or 100, but it's pretty close. Anyway, I got flamey because I roamed on this forum (and this thread) for the whole year and really didn't like either his arguments or attitude, not that my display on this thread was any better when I first arrived but what's done is done.

Edit: By the way @Lord Irontoe, I don't know about you, but the first thing I modified in the xml's is the peasant weapons' damage output... especially scythes: recruits wielding those monsters just cut down t4 melee troops with them.

 

[vonbalt]

From my testings comparing warband to bannerlord it seems armor has about double the effectiveness in warband compared to bannerlord, with the same general armor rating (40+) i was able to consistently take 9-10 hits before dying in warband compared to around 4 in bannerlord, it also helped that "weak" strikes would deal no or very low damage in warband, only well placed strikes would hit considerably while in vanilla bannerlord all hits strike no matter your armor.

 

[danEN]

From my testings comparing warband to bannerlord it seems armor is has about double the effectiveness in warband compared to bannerlord, with the same general armor rating (40+) i was able to consistently take 9-10 hits before dying in warband compared to around 4 in bannerlord, it also helped that "weak" strikes would deal no or very low damage in warband, only well placed strikes would hit considerably while in vanilla bannerlord all hits strike no matter your armor.

Simplified for console players

 

[eddiemccandless]

You are right, but that brings us to the next questions: What can Taleworlds do? What should they do?

It seems we are too far in the development process for them to consider completely revamping such an aspect of the game... And if we were to get an answer from devs, it wouldn't be surprising if we were told this is intended.

If we assume this is the case, they could "only" tweak: armor values, weapon damage values, damage&armor formulas and AI behaviour. As you stated focusing on one aspect won't fix the whole problem, but it can at least mitigate it which is... better than nothing, I guess. The devs have stated they are working on a revamp of the crafting system, perhaps this will be accompanied by some weapon stats adjustments?

I suspect changes aren't coming any time soon, especially if they do change the stats, since balancing things beforehand would then mostly be a waste of time. Buffing armor seems to be the easiest solution right now though, as the Realistic Battles Mod showcases (I am aware it changes more than armor values, but armor already does much more, perhaps even too much at high tiers I'd argue).

Finally, not to start a whole new argument but armor does poorly currently, and when we discussed the buff all he'd answer was that we were trying to make the player invincible. It's not a 0 or 100, but it's pretty close. Anyway, I got flamey because I roamed on this forum (and this thread) for the whole year and really didn't like either his arguments or attitude, not that my display on this thread was any better when I first arrived but what's done is done.

Edit: By the way @Lord Irontoe, I don't know about you, but the first thing I modified in the xml's is the peasant weapons' damage output... especially scythes: recruits wielding those monsters just cut down t4 melee troops with them.

It would actually be pretty easy to fix it, or at least try something new. Their damage/armor model is just bad. It was laid out in a thread that has been mentioned a couple of times here, but I will link it again for anyone who might have missed it.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/armour-why-it-doesnt-work-and-how-to-make-it-work.426296/

@Ingolifs has suggested a few alternative models that would address the issues that people are having, and it looks like a great solution to me. Will they actually implement it? Who knows. Time will tell.

 

[Akka]

It seems we are too far in the development process for them to consider completely revamping such an aspect of the game...

Not at all. The mechanisms work well, it's just a problem of variables, so it's, on a technical aspect, trivial. It's 100 % just about finding the good balance, there is nearly no point in time at which it's "too late".

 

[Calabanar]

That's reassuring!

 

[Honved]

Not at all. The mechanisms work well, it's just a problem of variables, so it's, on a technical aspect, trivial. It's 100 % just about finding the good balance, there is nearly no point in time at which it's "too late".

Agreed, the mechanisms aren't the issue, it's the inflated base HP combined with low protectiveness from mid-tier armor. Adding 3 hp on level-up to a character with 40 is rather significant, as in a 7-8% increase. Adding 3 hp to a character with 100 already isn't all that meaningful, only 3%, so the RELATIVE difference between low and high level characters is substantially less in BL than in WB. Reduce the base HP somewhat and increase the armor protectiveness a bit, and it should bring back at least a reasonable difference in durability between looters and high-tier troops.

The relative effectiveness of scythes and glaives is another matter.

 

[Mad Vader]

Not at all. The mechanisms work well, it's just a problem of variables, so it's, on a technical aspect, trivial. It's 100 % just about finding the good balance, there is nearly no point in time at which it's "too late".

It's "too late" if you look at subtle dependencies.
Having a different armor effect formula would slightly or less slightly change the balance between troops in player battles. Some would need equipment change to be nerfed or buffed for compensation.
Some weapons would lose their previous effectiveness and others would become OP and both would need to be re-balanced.
Any other assumption based on troop, weapon and armor battle performance would be at risk of not being valid any more.
In retrospect this kind of fundamental change needs to happen early in the game development, or there will be time wasted for late balancing.

 

[eddiemccandless]

It's "too late" if you look at subtle dependencies.
Having a different armor effect formula would slightly or less slightly change the balance between troops in player battles. Some would need equipment change to be nerfed or buffed for compensation.
Some weapons would lose their previous effectiveness and others would become OP and both would need to be re-balanced.
Any other assumption based on troop, weapon and armor battle performance would be at risk of not being valid any more.
In retrospect this kind of fundamental change needs to happen early in the game development, or there will be time wasted for late balancing.

I would agree with that if there was actually a balance between troops in player battles

 

[vonbalt]

I would agree with that if there was actually a balance between troops in player battles

their last try at balancing it was just mix-matching equipment to make troops look ugly and out of place instead of messing with the armor values lol

 

[Mabons]

Recently been using Bannerlord Online mod and it's becoming increasingly more apparent just how silly the armour is in game. Stones thrown by looters doing upwards of 15 damage against my character in full mail from head to toe is just... yikes man. My Palatine Guards had to be thrown away because they would constantly flinch against the stone onslaught, I had to take horse archers who could at least run away a bit.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

It's "too late" if you look at subtle dependencies.
Having a different armor effect formula would slightly or less slightly change the balance between troops in player battles. Some would need equipment change to be nerfed or buffed for compensation.
Some weapons would lose their previous effectiveness and others would become OP and both would need to be re-balanced.
Any other assumption based on troop, weapon and armor battle performance would be at risk of not being valid any more.
In retrospect this kind of fundamental change needs to happen early in the game development, or there will be time wasted for late balancing.

It's never too late! They can't just ? the bed and leave it, even if you have to burn the mattress and buy a whole new one and make some horrible story so nobodys knows it was because you **** the bed and left it there for 11 months+

We want a bed without **** in it!

 

[Apocal]

Recently been using Bannerlord Online mod and it's becoming increasingly more apparent just how silly the armour is in game. Stones thrown by looters doing upwards of 15 damage against my character in full mail from head to toe is just... yikes man. My Palatine Guards had to be thrown away because they would constantly flinch against the stone onslaught, I had to take horse archers who could at least run away a bit.

???

How are looters even getting remotely close to your archers?

 

[Mabons]

???

How are looters even getting remotely close to your archers?

The distance in that mod is very reduced they practically spawn in front of your archers. Not the point, they should fix the armour is all I'm saying.

 

[Doktor Barber]

cut/pierce seem fine to me. Blunt needs to be fixed though its insane

 

[CrazyElf]

From my testings comparing warband to bannerlord it seems armor has about double the effectiveness in warband compared to bannerlord, with the same general armor rating (40+) i was able to consistently take 9-10 hits before dying in warband compared to around 4 in bannerlord, it also helped that "weak" strikes would deal no or very low damage in warband, only well placed strikes would hit considerably while in vanilla bannerlord all hits strike no matter your armor.

I think that we need a summary of what we want - kind of like the one that was put into the large megathread here.

For me - the simple solution is - the stock game should be identical to Realistic Combat Mod.

Realistic Battle Mod

This mod makes combat more realistic and improves AI. Armor and damage is reworked according to experimental data and physics. Units try to survive. AI uses proper formations and new custom culturally

www.nexusmods.com

Literally for the developers to take a look at the code, even work with the mod developer (who is now active on these forums) and use those values.

 

[Philozoraptor]

I think that we need a summary of what we want - kind of like the one that was put into the large megathread here.

For me - the simple solution is - the stock game should be identical to Realistic Combat Mod.

Realistic Battle Mod

This mod makes combat more realistic and improves AI. Armor and damage is reworked according to experimental data and physics. Units try to survive. AI uses proper formations and new custom culturally

www.nexusmods.com

Literally for the developers to take a look at the code, even work with the mod developer (who is now active on these forums) and use those values.

Our changes in RBM are not really compatible with "fast paced gameplay" and you actually need certain weapon types vs heavy armors which is not normy friendly.

 

[Mad Vader]

Maybe you can speed up the game to be more in line with Taleworlds dogma.
When the player is running and is literally fast paced, you should play "Yakety Sax".

Spoiler: Hobbit mod demo (fast paced)