These need fix/work ASAP

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There are some mods out there that do overhaul the troop tress quite a bit. Some even have patches for RBM compatibility now.

However, I think that once the game matures, it would be interesting to see your take (and the rest of the RBM team's take) on the Bannerlord troop trees.
There is only so much that can be done with the troop tree if you want to keep the mod savegame compatible (which means vanilla troop tree structure and vanilla items). Vanilla design is 5 tiers of normal troops and tier 2-6 for nobles. To make units diverse under such conditions you must start at cloth armors and end at splint over mail very heavy armors. There is not much else that can be done with it other than is already done in RBM as we have our own overhaul that is balanced for combat module included in the combat module.

However if I was to play with more radical overhaul I would pick DRM, since it is has most historically accurate gear and troops quality (lot of unit branches go only up to tier 3, which fits well with levies). RBM is more like hundred years war 10th-12th century edition when it comes to amount of good quality gear on troops.
 
Oh, another discussion of the unreality of armor and how to improve it, with the usual useless couple of suggestions (nerf ranged damage / buff armor value).

I want to point out that the character has no uncovered points.
This implies that increasing the armor value would cause a character with good armor to become too tough compared to what it needs to be for the game to stay balanced.

But obviously the too low armor value brings these problems.

we would need a solution that includes these characteristics:
1) high armor value for good armor
2) enemy who wears that armor that can still be beaten in a reasonable way.
3) armor must be useful against ranged hits (arrows, darts, etc.)

Who knows which armor system reflects these factors ...
 
Glaives were a cavalry weapon, but mainly in militaries influenced by China. The Naginata is a form of glaive, so is the Yari and the Guandao. I think glaives as a main cavalry weapon for certain factions is fine, they're just ridiculously OP. I don't mind this either though. Battles would suck without OP glaives.
The problem is the glaives are just too good to pass up if you want to make a difference on the battlefield. I tried to restrain myself and use just sword and board plus a lance... but the glaive is simply too good. Some sort of stamina system would probably help, swinging those monsters from horseback should be really taxing.
 
Oh, another discussion of the unreality of armor and how to improve it, with the usual useless couple of suggestions (nerf ranged damage / buff armor value).

I want to point out that the character has no uncovered points.
This implies that increasing the armor value would cause a character with good armor to become too tough compared to what it needs to be for the game to stay balanced.

But obviously the too low armor value brings these problems.

we would need a solution that includes these characteristics:
1) high armor value for good armor
2) enemy who wears that armor that can still be beaten in a reasonable way.
3) armor must be useful against ranged hits (arrows, darts, etc.)

Who knows which armor system reflects these factors ...
When it comes to armor you throw balance out the window. Good armor should be unbalanced. You should be able to survive getting whacked by swords, arrows plinking off you (except for certain arrows and bolts) while you take out less armored enemies one by one.

To beat an enemy in expensive armor you ideally need a blunt weapon or a longer weapon with weight focused on one end (like a poleaxe).

Bannerlord doesn't have that kind of armor. Well designed full plate that can make someone a walking tank is more a 15th and 16th century thing. But Bannerlord's time period does have armor that should do a reasonable job vs arrows and the smaller, faster swinging weapons like swords.

And I like the idea of a stamina system to make glaives on horseback a lot less OP.
 
Action-limiting stamina systems are homophobic gay ****e. I have never played a game that does them well. Any system that limits player inputs will also make gameplay a fight with the mechanics rather than against an opponent. You will also be forced to spend a handful of seconds doing nothing. This is complete overkill for a single overpowered weapon which just needs its damage reduced.
 
Action-limiting stamina systems are homophobic gay ****e. I have never played a game that does them well. Any system that limits player inputs will also make gameplay a fight with the mechanics rather than against an opponent. You will also be forced to spend a handful of seconds doing nothing. This is complete overkill for a single overpowered weapon which just needs its damage reduced.
I'd argue it needs to be made very slow-swinging from horseback instead of just lowered damage, especially in recovering and getting ready for another swing.
 
How slow are we talking? The variance in weapon speeds in Bannerlord (and Warband) is fairly small, I can't think of any weapon that can swing twice as fast as any other, and for good reason, it turns 1v1s into stunlock spamfests if you can swing too fast.

The glaive really isn't that strong inherently. Remove the ludicrous damage and it's just a 2h axe that cant cleave. In Warband glaives were mechanically identical, but hardly anyone used them. Changing combat mechanics (which I think are actually the strongest part of Bannerlord) just to nerf one weapon type is kind of absurd.
 
When it comes to armor you throw balance out the window
I identify the balance in the relationship between the game's adherence to reality and its playability by the player and the AI.

If you invent a game where you turn in a tank (the modern ones now, with cannons, machine guns and all) against the bannerlord recruits throwing stones, it would end up disintegrating them and there would be nothing funny in the keep playing such an unbalanced game.
Or it could be you, armed with a sword and shield, against a tank. Obviously you wouldn't last long.
It would be very realistic either way, but boring and repetitive.
And it is precisely for this reason that such a game does not come out, because balancing it (in the sense written above) would be difficult without introducing forcing that would undermine the realisticity of the context.

In the case of bannerlord it is not the balance that has to be thrown out the window, but the conception of the armor system that one insists on keeping up.

The current armor system is UNREALISTIC (in the physical sense).
what we have is: 5 hurtboxes all coverable.
If you make the armor "realistic" as you suggest, ie by increasing the armor value, what you generate is a character with all 5 hurtboxes defenses to the maximum that can withstand 1000 non-club hits but cannot withstand 5 hits of club.
Does it seem realistic or balanced?
To me neither of them.
And not because the character withstands 1000 non-bat hits or falls to the ground after 5 club hits, but because that "1000" hits should not depend only on the armor worn by the character, but also on the enemy's skill in hitting the weaknesses, which this system does not take into account, with or without realistic armor.
But if the character only has 5 hurtboxes all covered, what weaknesses does he have? he has no weaknesses.

What I suggest is:
Let's suppose that the hurtboxes are 10, of which 7 are large and can be covered and 3 are small and cannot be covered.
Then those 3 uncoverable hurtboxes would be a "weak point" while the other 7 would be strong or weak depending on the armor covering them.
In this way, although a fully covered warrior turns out to be very resistant against anyone (because he will generally be well protected where he is covered and is supposed to be able to defend where he is not covered) although he can still be defeated by that warrior, whether he is good or lucky, who he manages to hit it 3-4 times in those weak spots, unlike other less experienced warriors who instead hit the covered hurtboxes and took 100 hits to knock him down.

In this way there are no invincible warriors, but well protected.
And from a distance this system works even better.
 
When it comes to armor you throw balance out the window. Good armor should be unbalanced. You should be able to survive getting whacked by swords, arrows plinking off you (except for certain arrows and bolts) while you take out less armored enemies one by one.

To beat an enemy in expensive armor you ideally need a blunt weapon or a longer weapon with weight focused on one end (like a poleaxe).

Bannerlord doesn't have that kind of armor. Well designed full plate that can make someone a walking tank is more a 15th and 16th century thing. But Bannerlord's time period does have armor that should do a reasonable job vs arrows and the smaller, faster swinging weapons like swords.
+1
When it comes to troops, armor doesn't need to be balanced, it needs to be an advantage. In fact even against blunt weapons it should provide a bit better protection, considering that it is supposed to have padding (gambeson/aketon) underneath.
And I like the idea of a stamina system to make glaives on horseback a lot less OP.
I agree with Kentucky here (other than no game doing stamina well- Mordhau's stamina system is actually decent, and acts as a second health bar which punishes the player for mistakes and turtling) in the sense that implementing a new system to balance a single weapon is not necessary. You'd also never sell stamina to the majority of the playerbase since some long-time players really hate the concept.
Just gotta nerf swinging polearm damage in general and glaives will be fine.

Also make the menavlion a pike TW, they are not glaives.
 
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If you invent a game where you turn in a tank (the modern ones now, with cannons, machine guns and all) against the bannerlord recruits throwing stones, it would end up disintegrating them and there would be nothing funny in the keep playing such an unbalanced game.
Or it could be you, armed with a sword and shield, against a tank. Obviously you wouldn't last long.
It would be very realistic either way, but boring and repetitive.
And it is precisely for this reason that such a game does not come out, because balancing it (in the sense written above) would be difficult without introducing forcing that would undermine the realisticity of the context.

There are plenty of games where you can become overpowered and have fun being overpowered, and vice versa. In Kenshi you spend the early game being weaker than every enemy and NPC on the map, and end up being so strong you can melt 1000s of elite enemies with your **** & balls. Both modes of play are fun. Similarly, in Rome Total War, some factions are just straight up weak and have terrible starting positions, but theyre a lot of fun to play.

This idea that every singleplayer game has to be balanced is ludicrous. Singleplayer, especially longform sandbox singleplayer like bannerlord, is exactly the arena for asymmetric gameplay. Some factions should be worse and smaller than others, the player should be allowed to experience a wide range of power imbalances, and there should be equal accommodation to masochistic speedrun tryhards, and sadistic power fantasy minmaxers.
 
I identify the balance in the relationship between the game's adherence to reality and its playability by the player and the AI.

If you invent a game where you turn in a tank (the modern ones now, with cannons, machine guns and all) against the bannerlord recruits throwing stones, it would end up disintegrating them and there would be nothing funny in the keep playing such an unbalanced game.
Or it could be you, armed with a sword and shield, against a tank. Obviously you wouldn't last long.
It would be very realistic either way, but boring and repetitive.
If you are going up against an imperial cataphract with a sword and shield you shouldn't expect to do much to him. Same with an enemy lord wearing some of the best armor in the game.

That's where the heavy blunt weapons should shine. Maces, warhammers, clubs. A cutting weapon should do next to nothing against that kind of armor. It's one of the reasons heavy blunt weapons became so popular. Two heavily armored knights hitting each other with arming swords is an exercise in futility (there's no murder strokes or anything like that in this game). Even larger longswords aren't going to do much. One knight may eventually take a good knock on the head but it's also possible one will give up from sheer boredom. But two heavily armored knights with maces or warhammers...

(Swords as well changed pretty dramatically, becoming longer, thinner and diamond-shaped for thrusting instead of wider for slashing).

I have no problem with heavily armored lords or high tier troops vastly outclassing recruits. Recruits in this game so far are little more than peasant farmers with the potential to become something more. I remember in the Warband mod I used I could wade into groups of recruits in my full plate and be relatively safe, swinging and hacking away, as it should be when enemies have no way to knock you down and they're only hitting you with small one handed swords. Bannerlord's armor is not as advanced but it shouldn't be this weak either.

Tell me, is there any reason right now to use heavy, short blunt weapons in game? No, and it's mostly because armor is so weak there's no need for them. They offer no advantage, when they should absolutely offer a significant advantage when hitting the best armor.
 
There are plenty of games where you can become overpowered and have fun being overpowered, and vice versa. In Kenshi you spend the early game being weaker than every enemy and NPC on the map, and end up being so strong you can melt 1000s of elite enemies with your **** & balls. Both modes of play are fun. Similarly, in Rome Total War, some factions are just straight up weak and have terrible starting positions, but theyre a lot of fun to play.

This idea that every singleplayer game has to be balanced is ludicrous. Singleplayer, especially longform sandbox singleplayer like bannerlord, is exactly the arena for asymmetric gameplay. Some factions should be worse and smaller than others, the player should be allowed to experience a wide range of power imbalances, and there should be equal accommodation to masochistic speedrun tryhards, and sadistic power fantasy minmaxers.
Are we talking about "any kind of games" or "strategic + action rpg, realistic" (or in any case not inspired by a fantasy)?
I would say the second case.
And in this case (realistic strategists for example) I doubt you will find a mode that is the main one in which your faction has units so strong that they individually destroy an enemy army without having any problems.
If the aim of the game is to be a strategist, the norm will be to have a game where strategy prevails, not a single unit that disintegrates the rest.
At most you might find an optional mode where they make you create an army with modern or cool weapons and units against everything else (and here you can travel in fantasy and creativity).
But the norm for a game with a certain target is to hit that target, not to go completely astray.


When I speak of balance I don't mean "homogeneity".
I'm fine that there is asymmetry between the factions, the same reality is like that.
What doesn't suit me is the unreality of the armor system, which is the cause of the imbalance in various areas.
By balancing in the armor system I don't mean the armor values of the soldiers of one faction relative to the other, but the conception of the armor system itself, which I consider unrealistic and which is applied to all units of any faction.
The imbalance is not between one faction and another due to their intrinsic difference in strength, but is due to the fact that a certain type of unit is used more in a faction than another and this unit enjoys some advantages given by the armor system, not because the unit itself is strong or if it plays better.
The most classic example is "archers vs infantry".
Archers enjoy the advantage of being able to hit any hurtboxes of the infantryman's model and in each of these hurtboxes will inflict significant damage.
So even if the infantryman were armed with a shield, if he were hit in the leg, which is protected by the boot, he will still suffer a significant damage.
Conversely, if most of the infantryman's hurtboxes were with very high protection and the rest were unprotected but covered by a shield, then the archer would not be able to hit him in the open areas. If he hit him in the legs, they would be so protected that they would suffer only negligible damage.

But the current armor system does not provide for a division of hurtboxes into 2 categories: coverable and non-coverable.
Therefore the developer cannot raise the armor value significantly, because if he did it would cause an imbalance in hand-to-hand combat that is too large between units that have equipment of different quality.
This involves having armor with low armor value and therefore not very effective.
But the worst problem is that archers benefit more than others, and therefore also the factions that use archers the most (especially if they are on horseback, because they are elusive).
Therefore a misconception of the armor system leads to an imbalance between the types of units, and this imbalance is reflected in the relationship of strength between the factions which, being characterized differently due to asymmetry, will use more types of different units, which will lead to if those advantages and disadvantages that the armo system entails.

Precisely for this reason the biggest complaints are addressed:
1) to the archers themselves against any other unit.
2) the strength of the kuzhait compared to the factions that use far fewer archers than them.

I point out that point 2 is a consequence of point 1, and this is due to the armor system.
 
Tell me, is there any reason right now to use heavy, short blunt weapons in game? No, and it's mostly because armor is so weak there's no need for them. They offer no advantage, when they should absolutely offer a significant advantage when hitting the best armor.
I am not blaming you on this.
On the contrary, I am agreeing with you and I am telling you that the problem lies not ONLY in the low armor value of the armor and in the fact that the impact damage (blunt) is not valued.
I'm adding that the problem that ARMOR VALUE CANNOT BE RAISED is that raising it too high for well-equipped units, you risk having too strong warriors and too much difference in strength between well-equipped people and poorly equipped people.
And although the clubs in this case would have their reason for being used, it would have the opposite effect for the swords, which instead would be set aside.
AS A SOLUTION, I proposed to divide the hurtboxes of the model into 2 categories:
1) Most armor-covered hurtboxes
2) the few remaining uncoverable hurtboxes.

In this way, if with the sword I attack a character who is very covered and with very high weapon value, my likelihood of hitting him in the weak points (discovered) will be proportional to how many hurtboxes will be discovered and how good I am at hitting them.
If he turns out to be heavily covered then I'm unlikely to hit him, but not impossible or tediously tough.
In fact, if I hit him where he is covered I would inflict very low damage on him and maybe 40 hits would be needed to knock him down. Instead if I hit him where he is exposed I would need 4-5.
The point, with the sword and non-blunt weapons, would be to hit him where he is most exposed.
If, on the other hand, I have a club, then where I hit it becomes less relevant.
If I hit him where he has armor, maybe I need 10 shots to knock him down, and if I hit him where he doesn't, maybe I still have 8 shots.
This means that with the club there is less need to be precise in hitting, but that if you really want to be precise, you are still rewarded.
In the case of the sword (and the spear), however, being precise is a necessity.

Did I make myself clear this time?
 
Lol you know what troops have glaives right? They only swing em about once a battle if at all.
It was just an idea to help curb the use of glaives on horseback as a player because it's so cheesy and OP.

(and I don't use it on horseback for that reason).

When I get it in the Kuzait tournaments that round is over in mere seconds. One swing and instawin. Now I can see that if's a Vlandian tournament and you're charging each other with couched lances, but swinging a heavy glaive (not a naginata, a glaive) like it weighs nothing is so much cheese.
 
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