These EASY changes Taleworlds can do to make the game MUCH more fun

[swally0ne]

Yes, and the rest of your army is dead. Shields also can take like 100 arrows. Is this balanced, nope?

barely anyone of an army of halfway good troops is dying because of archer fire in sieges. most because of siege engines, close combat and broken path finding. just had a battanian siege 1400 against 890 and 50 died autocommand on.

whatever the problem is "too much archer damage" is simply not it.

 

[thomas13]

Yes, and the rest of your army is dead. Shields also can take like 100 arrows. Is this balanced, nope?

Depends on the quality of the shield. Poor quality shields get destroyed under intense arrow fire.

 

[JunKeteer]

Problem: Vassals can repeatedly call a vote, even if you just spent Influence to reject it. This can drain your Influence rapidly and force you to accept very stupid AI decisions that set you back.
Solution: If a policy/war/peace vote has been called in the past 5 days, it goes on "cooldown" and can't be called by the AI.

Should maybe apply to players too (re that influence drain abuse), not a fan of the influence system whatsoever though; poorly developed.

Problem: Bannerlord is very slow, repetitive and grindy. Unlocking all smithing parts takes 12 hours of clicking. Reaching Clan Rank 4 takes a long time. Companions and heirs take a huge amount of grinding to level up.
Solution: Reduce the renown needed to go up a clan rank, and the weapons you need to smith to unlock a part. Make companions and heirs have better starting stats, so they don't have to grind for so long.

It's like TW were trying to go for a, 'smithing takes generations to unlock all'; but the rest of the game can be finished within a single generation anyways. Then your companion dies, and you have to regrind smithing skill to craft those T6 parts. Way too many unnecessary parts (especially pommels) and the fact I can literally and also get a notification that I 'unlocked nothing' sometimes is so stupid.

Problem: Most votes can't be changed because lords usually all vote the same way. Even if you spend 150 influence and have 100 relations with them. So voting, a core gameplay mechanic, is usually a waste of time.
Solution: Increase the weighting of relations with the vote caller in the formula that determines the AI's decisions on voting. If that's too hard, just let us spend more than 150 influence in votes so we can change the outcome.

Because most votes are usually either A or B (no nuance in AI 'thinking'); much like how armies tend to always attack/defend the same objective - too binary. Influence system as they made it is stupid.

Problem: Even if you take every fief from an AI kingdom, they still get enough free money and tribute to hire all the mercenary clans, constantly raid your fiefs, and demand you pay THEM tribute for peace. This becomes extremely annoying as these already-defeated enemies are not challenging, just slow down your progress.
Solution: Do what Warband did. If a kingdom loses all its fiefs, and fails to retake one in 20 days, its clans all defect or go into exile.

Yes, something needs to be fixed; tired of seeing defeated AI parties literally spawn in front of my town and bee line to the same village (that was their culture's originally) and raid it. Defeat them, and the next lord pops up and does it again.
Maybe also allow them to join their rebel faction town (if one pops up) so they get some sort of actual chance to group up and come back too maybe; especially with armies now quelling rebellions better than before.

Problem: There is no point doing different tactics, because archers and horse archers can win easily. This is because arrows do too much damage to armor. Also, spears are too weak.
Solution: Increase the protection armor gives against pierce damage by 1.7x. (This will balance ranged attacks.) Increase the base damage of spears by 2.5x (so they become stronger than they were before). Then increase the damage of all other piercing melee attacks by 1.7x (so they stay the same).

Still differ on the method, but yes, horse/archers needed to be 'adjusted' some way.

 

[elbanana02]

The #1 easiest change they could make to make the game a lot more fun is BRING BACK THE PARTY SCREEN ASSIGNMENTS.
It was working fine before, there's absolutely zero logical reason it couldn't work even with the pre battle system. Just have the pre battle system use the party screen assignments as the basis for formation placement, instead of whatever wonky algorithm it's got currently.

 

[nibbler2345432]

You DON'T want to get to the "late game" faster bro. It's clear that that's the part of the game that got the least consideration.

 

[five bucks]

Not a bad idea, though I've never never been in situation where vassals can really drain my influence.

The way influence is gained/spent just isn't really thought out well. Either everyone's raking it in or A.I. can barely form armies. I don't think TW will address anything thing with influence because it "just works" as is

Yeah unlocks are not exactly fair between weapon categories (do I need all these pommels?)

Renown needed these days is a bit silly, but I think it was partly done to slow players from rushing into Kingdom creation before they have adequate money. Though Clan Tier 5/6 are extremely long grinds.

I'm a bit weird: I'd like to see player and A.I. lose both renown/influence when they lose battles. Like if your clan does nothing but fail, it should become irrelevant.


Yep hate voting.

I think your solution makes sense, adds validity to buttering up your fellow Lords via Charm. Honestly more of the game needs to be relation driven, really just kind of meaningless fluff as is, provided not negative.

Agreed

Actually I'd go even further. Soon as last fief is gone, Kingdom is destroyed. Ruler clan becomes a minor clan that can attempt to re-establish Kingdom, all other clans gotta find new homes.

A bit mixed on this one, cause it does sort of make sense they'd become terrorists/freedom fighters basically extorting wealth where they can. Most of this can be solved by making executions a less "evil" mechanic, so you can permanently rid yourself of the menace.

Glad we agree on all of these!

I've actually changed my mind on this, I used to think as you.

Reducing all Bows and Crossbows damage by 25% seemed good at first when I tried it, but makes ranged units really ineffectual and they can't even properly counter shock troops. Like they will run out of ammunition too quickly, not do enough damage, and not help enough in melee. They become dead weight in everything but sieges basically. Anything more then 15% reduction would be bad IMO.

I'm not proposing a flat damage reduction (which would make them weak vs unarmoured units too) but a reduction of damage to armour. Ranged units would still be great against units with low armour points as well as in sieges and so forth.

Consider that Warband's hit-to-kill for arrows against armour was double that of Bannerlord yet archers and Rhodok Sharpshooters were still very useful.

The issue is using them in close quarters, is well not possible and you can't really keep enemy at bay properly. (Though I've never created pike centered character) IDK if the solution is to give them a special bash/kick attack, have some kind of short bracing that counters sword zerging, or let you adjust length by changing grip.

Since the theme of this thread is easy solutions for TW to hurry up and do, perhaps spear close quarter damage penalty could simply be reduced.

Archers even fians have counters the problem is the AI never utilizes these counters properly.

Well that's not the only reason archers should become balanced. Have you ever tried doing a two-handed weapon playthrough? No amount of strafing and weaving or even the arrow block perk will save you from groups of archers who do ridiculously unrealistic high damage and whose slight random deviation means at least one will always hit.
And if you turn down damage to player to survive that, then melee attacking enemies can no longer scratch you.
And it's also super unrealistic and immersion breaking that a wooden shield can take 30+ hits and be fine, but a man in a fully face covering plate helmet will still die in 1 arrow headshot from a militia archer.
And when it comes to the player themselves, arrows being so strong means that there is no point in using any tactics other than "small group of distraction infantry plus spam archers" or "just spam horse archers" because both of those get vastly better results than anything else.

Arrow damage to armour needs to be fixed.

The only counters to archers are high tier shielded infantry in high numbers and creative use of cavalry with infantry. Considering that Taleworlds has I think explicitly stated the AI we have isn't going to change we're stuck with what we have.

Well if they're not going to change the AI as you say then.... Why not actually fix the armour?

 

[thomas13]

Well that's not the only reason archers should become balanced. Have you ever tried doing a two-handed weapon playthrough? No amount of strafing and weaving or even the arrow block perk will save you from groups of archers who do ridiculously unrealistic high damage and whose slight random deviation means at least one will always hit.
And if you turn down damage to player to survive that, then melee attacking enemies can no longer scratch you.
And it's also super unrealistic and immersion breaking that a wooden shield can take 30+ hits and be fine, but a man in a fully face covering plate helmet will still die in 1 arrow headshot from a militia archer.
And when it comes to the player themselves, arrows being so strong means that there is no point in using any tactics other than "small group of distraction infantry plus spam archers" or "just spam horse archers" because both of those get vastly better results than anything else.

Arrow damage to armour needs to be fixed.

Two-handed is usually my melee choice. I understand your argument and it makes sense the reason I'm opposed to that change is because the goal is to balance everything while keeping everything viable. Nerfing archers will make them less viable. In my opinion the best way to fix it is to raise all boats not just sink one of them.

Well if they're not going to change the AI as you say then.... Why not actually fix the armour?

Because I'd rather the game stay on the path its on then put it on a different path in the wrong direction. Granted I think it's headed in the wrong direction anyway but two wrong directions don't make a right direction.

 

[five bucks]

I understand your argument and it makes sense the reason I'm opposed to that change is because the goal is to balance everything while keeping everything viable. Nerfing archers will make them less viable.

Nerfing archers the right amount will make them just as viable as melee troops.

Right now they are much more viable than melee troops.

In my opinion the best way to fix it is to raise all boats not just sink one of them.

Increasing the resistance of armour to arrows is "raising the boat" of all melee troops though!

 

[mujadaddy]

Problem: Vassals can repeatedly call a vote

Problem: Unlocking all smithing parts, Reaching Clan Rank 4 takes a long time.

Problem: Most votes can't be changed

Problem: Even if you take every fief from an AI kingdom,

Problem: There is no point doing different tactics, because archers and horse archers can win easily.

Lol you would think you had enough playtime to actually git gud.

Most of this is 'I should have unlimited dictatorial power', but they killed Julius Caesar, so, I dunno, read a book?

The remainder is pure Git Gud.

 

[CrazyElf]

Problem: There is no point doing different tactics, because archers and horse archers can win easily. This is because arrows do too much damage to armor. Also, spears are too weak.

I'd flat out say a 50% or even a 75% reduction in effectiveness of arrows vs armor should be done.

 

[kweassa]

I'm not arguing with those things as issues, thou i don't agree for example with this:

Problem: Bannerlord is very slow, repetitive and grindy. Unlocking all smithing parts takes 12 hours of clicking. Reaching Clan Rank 4 takes a long time. Companions and heirs take a huge amount of grinding to level up.
Solution: Reduce the renown needed to go up a clan rank, and the weapons you need to smith to unlock a part. Make companions and heirs have better starting stats, so they don't have to grind for so long.


Your solution would just dump down the game, I started playing realistic difficulty after my first few hours from my first campaign, just to feel it harder.
I'd suggest adding another difficulty after realism (Survival) or something where you would really need to mind a lot of stuff, where decisions and stuff will be meaningful. Where you need time to sleep to be battle capable and such.

Regarding the smithing yes its a lot of clicking. but reducing the requirements is just another handy-cap. Wouldn't a better solution be to have the option of mass destruction so you don't have to click 14 000 000 times

Ah... a man after my own heart. My sentiments exactly.

 

[five bucks]

Lol you would think you had enough playtime to actually git gud.

Most of this is 'I should have unlimited dictatorial power', but they killed Julius Caesar, so, I dunno, read a book?

The remainder is pure Git Gud.

Git gud applies in none of these. I have no problem having enough skill to do any of these things. It's that your skill or effort as a player often has no bearing on the outcome of a situation, if you are playing the game as intended and not using exploits.

No matter how skilled you are at smithing it will still take 12 hours of clicking to unlock all parts.

No matter how skilled you are at battling it will still take 12 hours to level up your companions because they have to get the kill themselves and that relies on their AI.

No matter how much effort you put into learning clan leader personalities and relations with the ruler and grinding up their relation with you for hours in order to make an informed political decision they will still always vote the same way like a hivemind. And no matter how much influence you have from being good at the game, you can only spend 150 of it, while each clan head can spend just 20 when all voting the same way in order to have 160 influence, making you unable to change the outcome.

Grind isn't challenge. It doesn't require skill. It just burns hours of your life doing a repetitive easy task, but without the satisfaction of a challenge.

Do you even play SP? I find it hard to believe you haven't found any of these things annoying.

I'd flat out say a 50% or even a 75% reduction in effectiveness of arrows vs armor should be done.

That would be good.

 

[monoolho]

I use warbandlord. It destroyed ranged units with vanilla configs. No nerf on archers is necessary as long as armor material influences damage reduction. Warbandlords values for that are pretty good, but they make early game much harder, because you cant win tournaments until youve got at least 75 in most combat skills. I chose it because it was a lighter version of RBM, and it works wonders at that. However, ranged damage was also nerfed + armor buff, so it made ranged units way weaker (i fixed it by multiplying projectild damage by 5, and it seems much better, but such high value was needed because i also use scaling HP mod). So from my pov, just making armor matter makes the problem solve itself.

The grind is tedious. I get tHe point of having one character for every skill. But its too slow, too much. Too much [go in, click, go out, click, repeat] going on for most skills. A problem partially solved by xorberax mods: scholars to pay and get skills, training to train troops, labor work for money and some skills. Just boosting everyone's XP gains by 10% and the game is much more fast paced and less grindy (bannerlord XP tweaks mod).

These are problems that were mostly corrected in some way by mods. For me, personally configuring each option would be ideal, however just boosting it a bit makes the game much, much better.

Add to that AI Values Life with frequent death of npc heroes, separatism and diplomacy for constant in-fighting and ive got myself a perfect bannerlord end of EA experience, only missing the current missing features, like bandit carreers, etc.

Then the only necessary feature still missing is better tactics. Even the AI combat mod does wonders to make individual soldiers fight fiercely. But it'is in vain if they only follow sun tzu's F1F3 strategy. Now im thinking about going back to RBM for that...
TW has somewhat fixed soldier spacing, and made sieges a lot better. Individual combat is better (still has room for improvement, like adding at least another 2 levels of difficulty by making AI monstruous (which matters most against heroes)). Yet that is only the individual aspect. The greater strategy of how to move and which formations to use... that is sorely missing from the game. Maybe reduce the tactics threshold to 50, or 75? 100 to stop using F1F3 is still too high, especially given the slow XP progress of vanilla game.

 

[Brano]

For defeated kingdoms without fief, let them lords die in glorious last stand battle by decreasing their chance to survive spearhead thru brains to zero.