The reason 6v6 skirmish will never be fun

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My understanding of "3 essential elements" of Mount&Blade. Apparently, they are not typical Blizzard's "Healer-DPS-Tank"
They should be:
1. Balance maintainer(inf)
2. Balance manipulator(archer)
3. Balance pounder(cav)

"Balance" here is not about combat balance(not "who is OP, who should buff, etc...")
The "Balance" here means: 2 teams are in a relatively steady confrontational state. That state will last a certain time so that our skills, our tactics have an object to apply to.

Imagine we have a battle zone, 2 groups of melee infs are fighting each other. It could last about 2 minutes. That's because each of the team trying so hard. Neither will easily win.
Then players can design countless strategies for these priceless 2 minutes(or before these 2 minutes, or after)

We need this type of "Balance".

Let's talk back to Skirmish. We have poorly 6 ppl for each team.
What is the minimum number of archers to create x fire? 2
What is the minimum number of cavs to implement a chain attack? 2
Now we have only 2 slots left.
Question: Is there any possibility we create a "steady confrontational state" by these merely 2+2=4 infs?
No!
One successful charge/headshot could totally break the balance. 2v2 is "unstable".

Therefore, WE NEED A LARGER SCALE MELEE FIGHT.


You might argue: We don't need melee infs at all. We give them throwing weapons. Now everybody is kinda archer.
ok. For those non-melee inf units, their gameplay is basically "hit&run". Now everybody is dodging. How could this create a "steady confrontational state" battle zone?
Not to mention ppl are not expecting a medieval game to be another COD.


You might also argue: Who says we need a "steady confrontational state"? Lets forget "3 essential elements". We make infs dynamic. Also, we have archer x fire. That could be our "steady confrontational state" instead.
So its the current Skirmish design.
That is logically doable. So I will ask again: How many ppl get a medieval game to play COD/CS/BF/OW...?


BL veterans talk about rank, talk about newbies get bullied, Food chain, Social Darwinism, etc...
Do you guys ever think about how many options could a player have?
2 options? get strong or get bullied?
No. The third option is what they picked most frequently: To leave.
Anybody could get strong if they spend their time.
They just don't want to. Because that gameplay is something they don't want to spend their time on.


Last but not least. I asked some players about gameplay.
Archer-main player: enjoy when vs inf, boring/acceptable when vs archer,
cav-main player: enjoy when killing inf, acceptable vs cav
inf-main: its fun vs inf, boring vs cav/archer


so, besides the balancing design, since everybody could gain happiness from inf. The inf is kinda "happiness generator". Shouldn't we increase its number? Then make the game funnier?


conclusion:
from every aspect, we need a LARGER SCALE melee combat
6v6 is not enough to implement "3 essential elements"

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I know its an EA game. Just wish my thoughts and devs' thinking and planning have some coincide. If so, that will be great.
 
TW shot themselves in the foot with their class system design, it allows everyone to play whatever they want whenever they want. In the hopefully upcoming battle mode I would expect to see alot of parallels between how it is played and how siege is currently played with cav and archer spam. However I hope that there are some incentives to go a more sustainable class such as infantry since you will have 1 life and hopefully there will also be team damage enabled. However the window for abuse of each class type will still exist. Examples that I noted earlier are a spam of heavy cavalry or **** tones of archers.

Warband's system addressed this differently making it so that you had to do good to get good equipment. Cavalry would usually have to take into consideration if they wanted to put the majority of their funds into their horse, their armor, or their weapons. But now it is practically handed to them whether or not the player does well, after a few rounds they will be able to afford the Knight, or Cataphract no matter the consequences of their past performance.
 
TW shot themselves in the foot with their class system design, it allows everyone to play whatever they want whenever they want. In the hopefully upcoming battle mode I would expect to see alot of parallels between how it is played and how siege is currently played with cav and archer spam. However I hope that there are some incentives to go a more sustainable class such as infantry since you will have 1 life and hopefully there will also be team damage enabled. However the window for abuse of each class type will still exist. Examples that I noted earlier are a spam of heavy cavalry or **** tones of archers.

Warband's system addressed this differently making it so that you had to do good to get good equipment. Cavalry would usually have to take into consideration if they wanted to put the majority of their funds into their horse, their armor, or their weapons. But now it is practically handed to them whether or not the player does well, after a few rounds they will be able to afford the Knight, or Cataphract no matter the consequences of their past performance.

"ppl growing by killing" is the opposite of e-sport. Because e-sport game should prevent snowballing
So, that's another topic about "do we need e-sport", or, "does this game ready for e-sport"?
My answer is no, but not covered by this topic.
I just made an assumption that: even though this game is ready for e-sport(actually not), the current 6v6 design is still wrong.
 
TW shot themselves in the foot with their class system design, it allows everyone to play whatever they want whenever they want. In the hopefully upcoming battle mode I would expect to see alot of parallels between how it is played and how siege is currently played with cav and archer spam. However I hope that there are some incentives to go a more sustainable class such as infantry since you will have 1 life and hopefully there will also be team damage enabled. However the window for abuse of each class type will still exist. Examples that I noted earlier are a spam of heavy cavalry or **** tones of archers.

Warband's system addressed this differently making it so that you had to do good to get good equipment. Cavalry would usually have to take into consideration if they wanted to put the majority of their funds into their horse, their armor, or their weapons. But now it is practically handed to them whether or not the player does well, after a few rounds they will be able to afford the Knight, or Cataphract no matter the consequences of their past performance.
Gold or money is an incredibly important factor in nearly all good e-sport games. Everyone starts with similar gold and this amount can grow significantly dependent on how the player performs. In league of legends or valorant for example, the differences between winning and losing team are significant. It makes the difference between having the gear to afford mistakes or having bare minimum equipment which won't allow for any mistakes if you want to win. Now the problem with the class system in general is that there really isn't much difference in gold depending on whether the team is winning or losing. The most important factor is that having that little bit of extra gold can mean one extra spawn, but the balance here is not only dictated by gold. Some factions get really strong tripple spawns every round even if they're losing. And then, other factions don't have strong peasant classes and are forced to take more expensive classes. In a good amount of scenarios, the effect of having extra gold is entirely mitigated by the imbalance of the class system. To infer, I believe the class system is the culprit for all the lack of fun and with the current way of gold-distribution I don't see battle being much fun either. What we need is a better equipment selection system that takes gold into consideration better than the current system does.
 
I never understood the decision of adding skirmish. I’d play Warband for large Sieges and battles like the ones form crpg Strategus where you had a limited amount but a huge variety of equipment. Whereas in skirmish you get cav and ranged spammed on top of being forced into useless classes that have no armor whatsoever. Sad that absolutely nothing of all the successful warband mods made it into bannerlord. We can just hope that they release MP ASAP so everyone can abandon that Bastard of a native mode and get back to the roots.
 
I agree skirmish is very flawed, but there are some mistakes in your reasoning here. Basically, your assumption is that there will always be a minimum of 2 cav and 2 archers due to the nature of their classes in a single fight, but this doesn't necessarily hold. As an example, if the proper fight is chosen, it is possible to fight in areas (or times e.g. when opponent is caught moving) when there is no effective crossfire. In this situation, a team with more inf has an advantage, with the 2nd archer being dead weight either in the group fight, or not involved creating a 3v2 (or similar). Another example would be if you managed to position yourself defensively around a single objective, with 3 inf and 2 archers, this would be a nightmare for cav to attack, most likely being dismounted early.

And this is exactly what we saw in 6v6 tournaments in Warband, where eventually on closed maps (the most comparable style to BL maps) the normal set up ended up being 3 inf minimum, with a mix of 2/1 in the support classes (either 1 archer or 1 cav, usually the former).

There are other reasons that the other classes are preferred in skirmish, mostly due to respawns. It becomes less impactful if you catch a 2/2/2 team out of position and kill their archers, if those archers simply respawn and starting shooting you again. Similarly, to take our second example of the 1 cav, being defensive and dismounting 2 enemy cav matters much less when doing so disrupts your whole defense, creating space for the attack, and then the cav simply respawn and return instantly to the fight.

There are also mechanical balance issues regarding the classes themselves e.g. cav much discussed being too strong, and archers being able to bypass shields too often. And finally the melee mechanics themselves are not yet good enough to benefit melee fighting which inherently discourages players from engaging in it, even inf.

TLDR the root of the issue is in the game mode which disproportionally benefits support classes, not the 6v6 numbers.
 
Still, 8v8 for example would make the game more infantry melee oriented because there is only so many archerspots and space for cav. I think it was a bad decision to make it 6v6, it simply fits the nature of the game less.
 
I haven't written on the forum for a while, I just read.
I wanted to read how many posts were accumulating regarding the lack of balance of the various sections of the game, both in singleplayer and in multiplayer.
And I see threads abound.
Also, unlike this thread which proposes A CHANGE OUT OF THE SCHEMES, the rest is a simple "nerf archer, buff infantry, nerf cavalry" and on the other hand we read the exact opposite.
Often there are not even details in what is required or suggested, or they just say "reduce armor, increase armor", "reduce horse's HP / increase horse's HP", "The Archer AI must have a worse aim "(in singleplayer and captain mode), to then not be able to act on the skirmish mode (since there is no AI).

For quite a while I have written the posts you see below, I have written them BOTH for the SINGLEPLAYER and for the MULTYPLAYER.
The idea that the game should be "split in 2" for me is only the result of the inability to have innovative ideas that solve the problems of both modes.
Just varying 1 parameter hoping that something changes is madness if what has to change can do it with parameters or mechanics that are not inserted but if they were they would make this variation easier to control.

For example, as the thread suggests, changing the number of melee fighters from 2 to 4-6 (to 10v10) would bring more balance not to 1vs1, but overall.

Obviously there would remain the 1vs1 or 2vs1 problems when this situation arises.

The threads written below have the purpose of ADDING MECHANICS that should BE OBVIOUS, since in reality it would be possible to apply them and it is not clear because in a game this possibility is not taken into consideration.
Or to clarify, it is not clear why the conservatism of a certain slice of players should limit the introduction of these mechanics.

hurtboxes, armor slot end joint slot.
aim where there is no armor and do more harm.
If you hit the armor you do a lot less harm and depending on the type of armor you can also do no damage.
the ranged archer will have a chance of hitting you and doing you serious damage equal to the ratio of the exposed area to the total area of your body.
Up close, more than a question of probability becomes a question of aim, if you aim well it hits you.
So up close the archer here still looks dangerous. (And below is the solution).
Makes it possible to reduce the attack delay after the button is released.
Does it seem normal to you that the lunge, the fastest and most used attack in the change with full armor and 2-handed long sword (or half-sword), is reduced to being the slowest one of the wide slashes ?????

-quick step-dodge WITHOUT INVINCIBILITY FRAME and that YOU CANNOT SPAM, because if you spam me it becomes less efficient to the point of making you predictable and putting you in serious danger.
Is it not historically accurate? no, it's basically like dodging when you couldn't deflect when you weren't wearing armor that heavily covered your body yet.
So it's not only realistic, but historically accurate, and most importantly: LOGICAL, who wouldn't try to move quickly to dodge certain slashes or lunges ???
This mechanic also allows archers to dodge and being less affected by clutter, they dodge better.

SHIELDS + ENCLOSED BULLETS = ENCUMBRANCE
the archer can "slow down" the shielded infantry and keep their distance and force them to make strategic choices to deal with the situation.
detachable arrows, but remain exposed as you remove them.
Pilum greatly increase the size of the shields (better throw them away and get new ones).

couched lance:
I balance more such mechanics, which is quite unbalanced.

The threads already express a lot and the titles are quite clear, so I will avoid repeating myself for the 100th time, just because the threads are long and what I suggest are not simple "buff this" and "nerf this", read them if you like and vote where you can.
I agree with what is written in this thread anyway.

1)JOINT HURTBOXES and ARMOR HURTBOXES: an armor system that provide a way to balance factions warfare and make more deep the combat system(suggestions)
2)NON-SPAMABLE DIRECTIONAL STEP-DODGE new mechanics suggestion
3)[POLL] SHIELD + STUCKED PROJECTILE = ENCUMBRANCE
4)COUCHED WEAPON PROBLEM? SOLUTION: DYNAMIC COOLDOWN and DISARMAMENT(the weapon does not break,but falls on the ground)
 
The reason why this 6v6 games will never be fun is because it doesn't appeal to the majority of the M&b player base... most people began playing this game because of the large scale epic sieges and battles, and for many, this is what Mount&blade is all about.
Besides a handful of people... the overall community couldn't care less about a ****y 6v6 medieval CSGO wanabe.

I asked several friends about what they thought about the skirmish mode during the beta/EA and almost everyone told me they don't like it or preferred other game modes like captain/siege over it.

The thing is... the moment they release private server and people can organize their sieges and battles... this skirmish and captain mode will be dead in the water, only reason we're playing it in the first place is because siege servers crash every 5 minutes and there is no battle or other game modes.
 
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Still, 8v8 for example would make the game more infantry melee oriented because there is only so many archerspots and space for cav. I think it was a bad decision to make it 6v6, it simply fits the nature of the game less.
Sure, I think 8v8 works better as well, but since it was built with matchmaking in mind I understand why they went with 6v6. Even WBMM often struggled with 8v8.

I'm just pointing out 6v6 doesn't necessitate a certain class setup like OP seems to think.
 

Uh, as you can see they want skirmish the way it is and it's likely not going to be changed.
If you want something different, no one is stopping modders from doing it he said?
 

Uh, as you can see they want skirmish the way it is and it's likely not going to be changed.
If you want something different, no one is stopping modders from doing it he said?

Nothing is stopping us besides the lack of Private Servers and fleshed out Mod Tools
 
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another long well constructed suggestion that will get ignored as always kekw
 
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