The problem with leveling and the generational approach of the game?

[Limbojack]

I see a lot of people complain about leveling taking too long, but I'm having a hard time understanding why. Let's just assume that the snowballing issues will get fixed and the campaign remains alive for at least a double-digit number of years, but hopefully more. The entire point of having children in Bannerlord is, as far as I can understand, to play them once your character dies off, something that requires the campaign to last a long longer than it currently does. If that's really the case, and the campaign was supposed to last for generations, wouldn't boosting the leveling process make the game too easy? I mean, just imagine your character dying as your son comes of age.

It took me about seven in-game years to reach level 18, and I have between 170 and 210 in the weapon skills I actually use in addition to having 60 to 95 in my supportive skills. My main character is just as powerful as most nobles after seven years, meaning that my son would be equally powerful at the age of 23 (given that he starts with a few skills at least). Just imagine how powerful your heir will be once he turns 30, or 40. He'll be an absolute beast.

It seems to me like leveling actually has to be slowed down in order to maintain the "generational" approach of Bannerlord unless we'll see second-generation characters with crazy stats after a couple of years. Another issue regarding the generational approach is that the campaign map has to change rather slowly in order for it to actually survive long enough for at least a second generation of characters, meaning that they either have to reduce the amount of AI aggression (sieges have to be a lot rarer and defections should almost never happen) as the map would have to remain rather stable in order to remain interesting.

What do you think about this problem?

 

[Kangamangus]

Re-leveling characters seems like a chore, no matter how you dress it up.

 

[Mrhazard1989]

I see a lot of people complain about leveling taking too long, but I'm having a hard time understanding why. Let's just assume that the snowballing issues will get fixed and the campaign remains alive for at least a double-digit number of years, but hopefully more. The entire point of having children in Bannerlord is, as far as I can understand, to play them once your character dies off, something that requires the campaign to last a long longer than it currently does. If that's really the case, and the campaign was supposed to last for generations, wouldn't boosting the leveling process make the game too easy? I mean, just imagine your character dying as your son comes of age.

It took me about seven in-game years to reach level 18, and I have between 170 and 210 in the weapon skills I actually use in addition to having 60 to 95 in my supportive skills. My main character is just as powerful as most nobles after seven years, meaning that my son would be equally powerful at the age of 23 (given that he starts with a few skills at least). Just imagine how powerful your heir will be once he turns 30, or 40. He'll be an absolute beast.

It seems to me like leveling actually has to be slowed down in order to maintain the "generational" approach of Bannerlord unless we'll see second-generation characters with crazy stats after a couple of years. Another issue regarding the generational approach is that the campaign map has to change rather slowly in order for it to actually survive long enough for at least a second generation of characters, meaning that they either have to reduce the amount of AI aggression (sieges have to be a lot rarer and defections should almost never happen) as the map would have to remain rather stable in order to remain interesting.

What do you think about this problem?

No because if you die after a battle then you lose all your stats and play as your heir. So leveling needs to happen more quickly just like how CK2 levels up your character within a relatively short real time frame because you will die before you are too op.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

It's just a bunch of junk TBH. Your character start out too good and barely improves from leveling skills and getting perks. It's boring and unrewarding.
Riding is the only useful skill and the HP perks are the only noticeable bonuses. Everything else is.... 'maybe' you're 10% faster aiming...... can I tell for sure?
And then there's skills we actually need like surgery and trainer, but we get incredibly weak versions that we might as well skip.

I dare you, just play with your default character and see how 'eh about the same' it is to your level 15-20 char.

 

[Limbojack]

Re-leveling characters seems like a chore, no matter how you dress it up.
[/QUOTE

Yes, I quite agree. But I can't imagine them giving the heir the same stat as their dead parent, so you'll have to do some re-leveling regardless.

No because if you die after a battle then you lose all your stats and play as your heir. So leveling needs to happen more quickly just like how CK2 levels up your character within a relatively short real time frame because you will die before you are too op.

I've been captured twice so far, in all my campaigns, so I'm quite curious to see exactly how deadly an experience singleplayer will be. I don't mind some sort of "education" for children, but I'm fairly certain that unless getting captured has something like a 20% chance of execution, you'll grow to become overpowered. And heck no, no more genius heirs at the age of 16 having16+ in all stats the moment they take over. This is one of the most common criticisms of CK2, and I'd hate to see something like that in Bannerlord.

 

[duchuy613]

I've been captured twice so far, in all my campaigns, so I'm quite curious to see exactly how deadly an experience singleplayer will be. I don't mind some sort of "education" for children, but I'm fairly certain that unless getting captured has something like a 20% chance of execution, you'll grow to become overpowered. And heck no, no more genius heirs at the age of 16 having16+ in all stats the moment they take over. This is one of the most common criticisms of CK2, and I'd hate to see something like that in Bannerlord.

What he meant is if you die, you'll start back and square 0 and will have to level up all over again. Your heir won't get your stats. It'll be at level 0.

 

[SmattlePattle]

Your heir should be leveling stats while they're not in your control, not to be cliche but similar to how it works in CKII in that your heir isn't just sitting in a vat doing nothing until the day you die. Will your heir likely be identically leveled, thus forcing you to relevel a bit? Yes, though that's easily moddable/editable if you don't find the idea of peaks-and-valleys of power/ability in a playthrough fun.

 

[Limbojack]

Oh, alright. I quite agree that an heir should receive an "education" set by the player. Like, trained just like any other child.

 

[aimlessgun]

The whole thing needs a lot of tuning because let's think about the real hours the player has to put in. It's like 20 years to get a playable heir. 1600 days. Then you play as the heir for a few hundred more days or something? Thats a multihundreds hour playthrough unless you sit and do nothing for long stretches.

99% of people don't have 200 hours to drop on a single videogame playthrough. If this is supposed to be a major mechanic that the entire level speed is based on, I don't think it should be tuned for the ultrahardcore. You could put in sliders to cater to those people but the default should aim to get you a complete character and heir transition in much much less time.

 

[Midnitewolf]

Re-leveling characters seems like a chore, no matter how you dress it up.

Yep. I personally would prefer a slower rate of aging with your children eventually just joining you as party members. I especially do not want to try leveling one of my children who due to random factors will probably have a borked up skill build by the time I get them.

Also, it is kind of ridiculous to be leading a party of mostly Tier 5 troops, when your weapons skills are like 40 and you can barely ride a Sumpter horse. By 10-15 hours in the campaign, I want to see my primary weapons skills reaching around 100 and at least be able to hold my own in a Tournament. Ironically I am OK with only getting my Softcaps up to 150 or so and it taking a long, long time to get higher with anything in the 200s taking an extremely long time but the initial 100-150 points should come somewhat quick.

For my part, I downloaded the 1 Attribute a Day mod combined with BannerlordTweaks default experience buff and it FINALLY feels like my skills are progressing the way they should. I am 10-15 hours in, have around 80 skill in 1-hd, Polearms, Bows and Riding. Atlethics is 37, 2-hd is 31, my tactics is like 47, my Scouting is 28, Medicine is 31, Roguery is 28, Charm is 23 and Leadership is 20 and this is with 3 times the Attribute Points and probably 2x the XP curve or more. I don't know about you, but for 10-15 hours in, these numbers seem to be very reasonable.

 

[Uruk34]

The whole thing needs a lot of tuning because let's think about the real hours the player has to put in. It's like 20 years to get a playable heir. 1600 days. Then you play as the heir for a few hundred more days or something? Thats a multihundreds hour playthrough unless you sit and do nothing for long stretches.

99% of people don't have 200 hours to drop on a single videogame playthrough. If this is supposed to be a major mechanic that the entire level speed is based on, I don't think it should be tuned for the ultrahardcore. You could put in sliders to cater to those people but the default should aim to get you a complete character and heir transition in much much less time.

+1 Was going to make this exact point. Allow people to adjust the pacing to their own preference and everyobody wins.

 

[Neodymus]

I see a lot of people complain about leveling taking too long, but I'm having a hard time understanding why. Let's just assume that the snowballing issues will get fixed and the campaign remains alive for at least a double-digit number of years, but hopefully more. The entire point of having children in Bannerlord is, as far as I can understand, to play them once your character dies off, something that requires the campaign to last a long longer than it currently does. If that's really the case, and the campaign was supposed to last for generations, wouldn't boosting the leveling process make the game too easy? I mean, just imagine your character dying as your son comes of age.

It took me about seven in-game years to reach level 18, and I have between 170 and 210 in the weapon skills I actually use in addition to having 60 to 95 in my supportive skills. My main character is just as powerful as most nobles after seven years, meaning that my son would be equally powerful at the age of 23 (given that he starts with a few skills at least). Just imagine how powerful your heir will be once he turns 30, or 40. He'll be an absolute beast.

It seems to me like leveling actually has to be slowed down in order to maintain the "generational" approach of Bannerlord unless we'll see second-generation characters with crazy stats after a couple of years. Another issue regarding the generational approach is that the campaign map has to change rather slowly in order for it to actually survive long enough for at least a second generation of characters, meaning that they either have to reduce the amount of AI aggression (sieges have to be a lot rarer and defections should almost never happen) as the map would have to remain rather stable in order to remain interesting.

What do you think about this problem?

Well, since probably more than half of the progression system is currently missing or bugged it is hard to tell what the dev vision is in terms of time.
I believe the progression should not take any heirs into account. On the simple basis that until your heir comes of age / or you die, 40+ rl hours will have passed, unless you rush through everything or die early, which should not be the goal either.
Do I want to feel like a weak rat after investing at least 40 hours of game time? No, I want to see impactful progress over that time period. This is a game and not work where I invest my time to finally see a payoff.

Now you could argue to speed up the rest of the game, but that again results in players feeling rushed and takes away the fun (see current snowballing issue).

 

[Wolfsblut]

+1 Was going to make this exact point. Allow people to adjust the pacing to their own preference and everyobody wins.

I second that post from the fellow from Isengard or Ahwar.

In my opinion this generational stuff will never work well with the character building aspect of the game.
You level your char (painfully atm) up, you die, you start the whole **** again with your son...
meanwhile the world is burning to the ground and you can't take care for anything because you are either an dodderer or a toddler.

 

[bantad87]

It's just a bunch of junk TBH. Your character start out too good and barely improves from leveling skills and getting perks. It's boring and unrewarding.
Riding is the only useful skill and the HP perks are the only noticeable bonuses. Everything else is.... 'maybe' you're 10% faster aiming...... can I tell for sure?
And then there's skills we actually need like surgery and trainer, but we get incredibly weak versions that we might as well skip.

I dare you, just play with your default character and see how 'eh about the same' it is to your level 15-20 char.

My level 1 character wasn't hitting for 120 damage w/ a sword. My level 18 character commonly does. Also runs extremely fast, & swings much faster.

 

[bantad87]

I second that post from the fellow from Isengard or Ahwar.

In my opinion this generational stuff will never work well with the character building aspect of the game.
You level your char (painfully atm) up, you die, you start the whole **** again with your son...
meanwhile the world is burning to the ground and you can't take care for anything because you are either an dodderer or a toddler.

You don't start all over with your kids. You can bring them into your party, or give them their own party, when they're still young, so they have skills long before you ever take them over.

 

[Neodymus]

You don't start all over with your kids. You can bring them into your party, or give them their own party, when they're still young, so they have skills long before you ever take them over.

But you start all over with building a connection to your player character, which can be just as painful. If there are more systems that give the children a personality and make me feel it long before they take over, then go for it. But that is probably still 3 years away from now.

 

[The Luminary]

You don't start all over with your kids. You can bring them into your party, or give them their own party, when they're still young, so they have skills long before you ever take them over.

This. Also I feel like your children should be born with focus points for certain skills, and have different personalities/ambitions. Some may have a natural proficiency with the 2h sword, others medicine. Some may want to become a caravan trader, others party leader or governor, or to start their own clan and if you allow them to be what they want they'll have higher relations with you. Some might not want the arranged marriage you have waiting for them, or might want to join another faction.

And when you die your children and their heir's relationships with each other and personalities should be very interesting as well. Certain quests that only your heirs can do would add more flavor to the game as well. Right now they merely feel like additional companions who are related to you.

 

[mamastoast]

Regardless of the pace, the current system's logic doesn't make any sense to me..

Anyway... unless we can consistently make each generation markedly better than the last, the generatino system won't solve the slow progression rate... If anything it'd make it worse knowing that you'll have to restart every so often.


Assuming you can give your child an education, okay, but your starting character also had an education and so forth.. So whatever you can pass on to your child needs to be much, much better than your starting background options.

 

[SmattlePattle]

Regardless of the pace, the current system's logic doesn't make any sense to me..

Anyway... unless we can consistently make each generation markedly better than the last, the generatino system won't solve the slow progression rate... If anything it'd make it worse knowing that you'll have to restart every so often.


Assuming you can give your child an education, okay, but your character character also had an educatio and so forth.. So whatever you can pass on to your child needs to be much, much better than your starting background options.

The slow progress rate is just something that needs to be tweaked, regardless of if the game had generation mechanics or not. I'm personally modding it at the moment.

Ditch the whole notion that each generation needs to be better. That's weird and only needed if you hold onto the games slow progression, which should be fixed regardless of generation mechanics or not.

 

[Sithrain]

The problem is there actually is no generational approach to the game. All the nations and lords in the world run around in an absurd total war where peace treaties are usually measured in weeks and nations disappear in months, and there is nothing time consuming to do. I could definitely conquer everything before my first character dies, I just can't max out my skills either because they have been arbitrarily capped (combat skills) or because no one considered how they should actually level in the first place (charm, medicine, scouting... basically all the old party skills). To have an engaging multigenerational experience the pace at which the whole world moves needs to be reworked, and that is still not going to make me enjoy a system that relies more on roadblocking my progress than rewarding me for it.