Momchilo said:
I am for something in between. Having gears and custom made weapons with different stats, but I wouldn't want to see it locked behind a progression wall, but simply unlocked for everyone and each piece of gear would have a positive and a negative trade off.
If we were to have such a thing, I agree that everything should be available to everyone from the get go and not be behind a progression wall, however there's still several issues with gear actually affecting game-play. It's a shame when you have to give up on using a piece of armor that you really like the aesthetic off because the stats it provides doesn't match up with your play-style, while a less aesthetically pleasing one does. I would still recommend that the customization be PURELY cosmetic.
Momchilo said:
As far as balance goes, the current system is not balanced, as certain factions are stronger than others, certain weapons better than others. Take duel for example, most used weapon is a greatsword and most common faction the Swadia. Now hop into a duel server for a mod like Mercenaries, and you will see a lot more diversity.
That's a trickier subject. M&B never had a duel focus, it's always had a focus on large dynamic battles with several different classes fighting each other all at the same time. Greatswords are only the best in their very specific domain, which is in duels, but then look at how it's used in competitive battle... oh right... it's not. You can't use a shield with them so you'd get obliterated when archers and cav enter the equation, and you generally can't even afford a greatsword in the first place. A greatsword costs over 1K when an inf has exactly 1K gold to spend for their weapons, shield and armor. The greatsword specifically caters to someone that just wants to duel, as it has the most efficient combination of damage, speed, weight, and range. The system you suggest would run into the exact same problem. There would inevitably be an optimal weapon build that caters specifically to a one-dimensional duel that most of the scene would end up using because it would be the overall best weapon for that very specific situation, even if only just slightly. The difference between the Greatsword and the standard Two-Handed Sword is almost negligible, the Two-Handed sword is only very slightly shorter, deals only very slightly lower damage, weighs only slightly lower, and swings slightly faster. They're almost identical weapons, but the Greatsword is only slightly better overall, and that's all it takes for it to become a weapon that gets used 1000x times more in duels.
Momchilo said:
And yes it doesn't fit into the current system of faction versus faction. But that system is not good for multiplayer imo as you cannot identify or relate yourself to one specific factions because you have to switch around all the time. A place for that is singleplayer, where you spend more time in a given faction and have more freedom of choice.
I wouldn't go as far as to say "that system is not good for multiplayer" because I know there are many that like the forced diversity in play that the faction system creates and I consider it a reasonable desire to have, but I'd personally prefer to play a more standardized character as opposed to switching between vaegir and nord archers which have different ranged and melee capabilities, or vaegir and nord infantry that swing the same weapons at different speeds and deal more damage than one another due to proficiency and power strike differences. Not to mention balancing standardized characters would be a much easier endeavor.
For Honor used to have a customization system along the lines of what you are suggesting. Around the start, every casual player thought it would be a cool system that would allow them to look unique and special and allow them to specialize and build around their play-style a bit, but that all ended when the
fire nationserious players attacked and started taking the customization system to its extreme and making builds that were optimal based on For Honor's combat system. Long-Story short, they ended up having to scrap that customization system because it turns out it's not the greatest idea to let players control their stats to that degree in a competitive multiplayer game where the goal is to win.
Now you could say that it's not particularly relevant because For Honor's combat is completely different from M&B's, and I'd agree, but that's not the main point. The main point is that in a multiplayer game, especially one based on fighting other people, people want to win, and will use the best build that allows them to do so.
What parameters do you think players would have control over in weapon customization for Bannerlord? The main ones would just be swing speed, damage, and range no? With just those, I can tell you exactly what the optimal dueling weapon for a competitive player would become. It would be the fastest possible weapon you could create that still deals enough damage to very rarely glance (preferably never) and has the lowest range that the specific player can comfortably manage given the ping they play with (players with higher pings are generally going to need longer weapons to compensate for the out-ranging footwork that can be abused against them, which is already a problem in and of itself that has no possible solution), so any extra length that the player deems unnecessary goes straight into swing speed. Anyone that diverges off that model would be putting themselves at a disadvantage.
For single-player it doesn't matter, a player could make an inefficient weapon and still be effective against bots, but in multiplayer, you'd get ass rammed by an equally skilled opponent that has a significantly more efficient weapon than you. And practically speaking, competitive players would most likely run around with the best weapon designs and newer/less experienced players probably not, exacerbating the problem even further.
I say it again, customization should be purely cosmetic. Everything game-play related should be fairly standardized for the sake of balance and consistency.
