Vanilla Armor vs RBM Armor

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I guess they kinda forgot about Warband.
benioff.jpg


Which is really the only way I can justify anything. They just forgot they made Warband. And when they released BL and saw the forumpost titled "I wish BL was Warband with Diplomacy" they just freaked out and vowed never to get on the forums again.
They barely know that Napoleonic Wars existed (it was outsourced to a different company), hence we got ****ty captain battle instead of proper commander battle (which is the only thing I was hoping for with BL) in multiplayer.
 
Mentioned before, but something along the lines of Kenshi (though some of their calculations there are a bit buggy too) with armor coverage%, cut eff%/resistance, blunt eff%/resistance, blunt passthrough damage, etc... is closest representation without having to redo the animation/models themselves.


And listen better with their community too.
Current blunt trauma of most weapons is roughly their momentum times 3. I think blunt trauma = momentum times 1 would be closer to reality but for balance purposes most weapons deal more damage to armor than they should, otherwise big battles would take hours instead of 30-45 minutes. On top of it we would have to do some sort of armor hp system if we went for realistic blunt trauma because combat would take long enough to take armor damage into consideration.

I mean, arrow that does not penetrate armor should do nothing. If you get hit by 20 arrows all of which do not penetrate you will not suddenly drop dead, you are probably not going to be even bruised. On the other hand any arrow (or bolt, dagger whatever) that makes it to your skin with energy of 10-20 joules is potentially fatal (assuming organs or big veins are in the way). But for balance purposes even arrows do some guaranteed damage (by blunt trauma) and arrow that makes it in with 20 joules of energy deals 20 damage not instakill, because its game and it would be absolutely impossible to balance unit trees (despite what some people might think, I spent dozens of hours testing and balancing unit overhaul in the combat module).
 
I mean, arrow that does not penetrate armor should do nothing. If you get hit by 20 arrows all of which do not penetrate you will not suddenly drop dead, you are probably not going to be even bruised. On the other hand any arrow (or bolt, dagger whatever) that makes it to your skin with energy of 10-20 joules is potentially fatal (assuming organs or big veins are in the way). But for balance purposes even arrows do some guaranteed damage (by blunt trauma) and arrow that makes it in with 20 joules of energy deals 20 damage not instakill, because its game and it would be absolutely impossible to balance unit trees (despite what some people might think, I spent dozens of hours testing and balancing unit overhaul in the combat module).
Agree that besides the field combat (as proven with RBM), there's also the issue that if we make certain troops 'realistic' based on their armor, the rest of game's systems becomes too imbalanced. Such as troop maintenance/upgrade costs, lord party presets/compositions, recruit chances, etc...which can't be modded easily (afaik as an outsider) to make up for the inadvertent 'OPness' of higher tier troops/armor.
 
I mean, arrow that does not penetrate armor should do nothing. If you get hit by 20 arrows all of which do not penetrate you will not suddenly drop dead, you are probably not going to be even bruised.
Going to play devil's advocate here for a second. Have you read this? (I'm sure you probably have).


Finally, the following passage written by Galbert of Bruges describes a formidable archer named Benkin and demonstrates that while mail might protect the wearer from being pierced with arrows, it did not necessarily save him from blunt trauma:

And when he [Benkin] was aiming at the besiegers, his drawing on the bow was identified by everyone because he would either cause grave injury to the unarmed or put to flight those who were armed, whom his shots stupefied and stunned, even if they did not wound.76

It can be seen from the above examples that mail provided a good defense against arrows. Although there were occasions when arrows penetrated the mail itself, the arrow was often halted by the padding. One should also note the effects of blunt trauma—even if an arrow failed to compromise the mail, it was still possible to cause discomfort to the wearer underneath.
77

I think that you would be bruised by arrows that fail to penetrate, and that can be represented ingame by some low amount of damage, like 1. (I think being hit by 100 arrows should be enough to knock a guy out!)

But of course, I strongly disagree with the current model where arrows impart an enormous amount of blunt trauma through padding.
On the other hand any arrow (or bolt, dagger whatever) that makes it to your skin with energy of 10-20 joules is potentially fatal (assuming organs or big veins are in the way). But for balance purposes even arrows do some guaranteed damage (by blunt trauma) and arrow that makes it in with 20 joules of energy deals 20 damage not instakill, because its game and it would be absolutely impossible to balance unit trees (despite what some people might think, I spent dozens of hours testing and balancing unit overhaul in the combat module).
Yes, it's better to use an abstraction where damage is '"averaged out" between, say, 1 fatal hit that would deal "100 damage" in real life and 8 non-fatal hits that would deal "1 damage" in real life.

That way it still takes 9 arrows to kill a guy like it would IRL, but rather than one of them randomly being high damage based on RNG, the damage is distributed to say 11 between each hit.
 
Yes, it's better to use an abstraction where damage is '"averaged out" between, say, 1 fatal hit that would deal "100 damage" in real life and 8 non-fatal hits that would deal "1 damage" in real life.

That way it still takes 9 arrows to kill a guy like it would IRL, but rather than one of them randomly being high damage based on RNG, the damage is distributed to say 11 between each hit.
That is the challenge as, realistically, skilled archers will try to aim for weak points points of penetration but have to contend with the armor/deflection/glancing. Since that isn't present in the game, the amount of the damage is the 'cheat' to sort of represent it.
In game, a plated knight would be like a hedgehog with 9 arrows to kill them, the 'averaged out' damage is the only way to represent that RNG so that it sort of represents that 8 of those arrows glanced off on hit and the 1 happen to hit a fatal area.
 
That is the challenge as, realistically, skilled archers will try to aim for weak points points of penetration but have to contend with the armor/deflection/glancing. Since that isn't present in the game, the amount of the damage is the 'cheat' to sort of represent it.
In game, a plated knight would be like a hedgehog with 9 arrows to kill them, the 'averaged out' damage is the only way to represent that RNG so that it sort of represents that 8 of those arrows glanced off on hit and the 1 happen to hit a fatal area.
Aiming for weakpoints might be realistic with relatively "low" draw weights, however warbows have "default" inaccuracy and as a result we are talking total RNG when it comes to hitting weakspots with them. If you are good you can hit a specific man with warbow at medium distance but intentionally hitting his arm pit or eye, not so much (just my opinion based on the comments of modern war bow archers).
 
boosting the skill bonuses would help with RBM's high-tier vs high-tier fights
under the armour and behind the weapon they're all still looters
 
I mean, arrow that does not penetrate armor should do nothing. If you get hit by 20 arrows all of which do not penetrate you will not suddenly drop dead, you are probably not going to be even bruised. On the other hand any arrow (or bolt, dagger whatever) that makes it to your skin with energy of 10-20 joules is potentially fatal (assuming organs or big veins are in the way). But for balance purposes even arrows do some guaranteed damage (by blunt trauma) and arrow that makes it in with 20 joules of energy deals 20 damage not instakill, because its game and it would be absolutely impossible to balance unit trees (despite what some people might think, I spent dozens of hours testing and balancing unit overhaul in the combat module).

Out of curiosity, how does the equation change for throwing javelins and the like?

Crossbow I would assume would be like arrows - the bolts of a different velocity however in return for slower fire rates.
 
If you've played RBM, you know that Armor matters. It makes a difference when an arrow hits you vs when a crossbow bolt hits your chest. Highly armored units will tramble looters to dust...
It's not a good mod then...
Why would be any difference?
The momentum and the shape/hardness of the projectile are important only.
 
boosting the skill bonuses would help with RBM's high-tier vs high-tier fights
under the armour and behind the weapon they're all still looters
Have you played some recent version or are you talking from memory about some older version of the mod? Because looter with rusty sword will deal like 50 damage while legionary with same sword will deal 100+ and he will deal it much faster.
 
Out of curiosity, how does the equation change for throwing javelins and the like?

Crossbow I would assume would be like arrows - the bolts of a different velocity however in return for slower fire rates.
Damage comes from kinetic energy in case of all projectiles, arrows and bolts are better at full penetration than javelins, they got same blunt trauma, however javelins, and melee piercing attacks are capable of partial penetration which gives them more "guaranteed" damage vs medium-heavy armor then in case of arrows.
 
Have you played some recent version or are you talking from memory about some older version of the mod? Because looter with rusty sword will deal like 50 damage while legionary with same sword will deal 100+ and he will deal it much faster.
just going off skills in the menu

so it's different for units? only the player gets weak effects?
 
don't know about you guys but you can make practically any style of combat work in vanilla. as long as you know when to act and how to do so. the low armor on the MC is due to some perks being pretty much bonkers. Athletics number 1, then one in bow. given the right perks and any decently good vanilla weapon you can turn MC into a tanky killer. but maybe it's me who is a nerd and plays way too much vanilla combat to know when to do what and how to build an MC.

If you made my 50+ Body armor MC even tanker by reducing arrow DMG i could easily rack up 100+ kills using nothing but an horse and a lance.
if what you are looking is the feeling of being powerful then RBM might be better for you but not necessarily what everyone is looking for, some people find the more unforgiving vanilla combat more enjoyable. it makes you feel uneasy in an important fight, like a real commander would.

But we can all agree Cavalry is in a terrible state
 
don't know about you guys but you can make practically any style of combat work in vanilla. as long as you know when to act and how to do so. the low armor on the MC is due to some perks being pretty much bonkers. Athletics number 1, then one in bow. given the right perks and any decently good vanilla weapon you can turn MC into a tanky killer. but maybe it's me who is a nerd and plays way too much vanilla combat to know when to do what and how to build an MC.
If your argument rests on the assumption that you are the only one who is smart enough to think of something, and nobody else has thought of it, consider for just a moment that maybe other people have. Even with perks, the player character in armour is nowhere near as survivable as an armoured character in Warband was. Even with perks and the best armour, the way armour works in the game is just not fun.
If you made my 50+ Body armor MC even tanker by reducing arrow DMG i could easily rack up 100+ kills using nothing but an horse and a lance.
Even tankier, you say? The player is not tanky at all now. 50+ body armour, the very best costing millions of denars, only lets you take 7 hits from a distant archer, and makes NO difference to the number of arrows it takes to kill you at close range.



You can already easily rack up 300+ kills in a siege with a catapult, but that doesn't mean catapults shouldn't exist. If you are worried about it being too easy for the player to slaughter enemies from horseback, my answer is that the number of soldiers who use pikes as their main weapon should be increased, that will up the difficulty for riders a little as they have to pick their targets carefully.

In addition, making armour stronger will make it harder for the player to slaughter armoured enemies too! Right now you can easily cheese them with a glaive or crossbow. You're not considering that an armour buff would affect enemies too.
if what you are looking is the feeling of being powerful then RBM might be better for you but not necessarily what everyone is looking for, some people find the more unforgiving vanilla combat more enjoyable.
If you want to know what everyone is looking for, go look at this thread. https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...n-conception-the-elephant-in-the-room.451273/ Or one of the hundreds of other posts about it.
The vast majority of players want better, more protective armour.
I'll turn your argument back on you - considering you're in the minority here, if you don't like the level of protectiveness realistically protective armour gives you, you can always just not wear it. Or install a mod as you're telling other people to do.
it makes you feel uneasy in an important fight, like a real commander would.
If we're going to use the word "real", multiple real commanders in real life fought on the frontline themselves. Because in real life, quality mail armour made you very well protected.

Richard the 1st of England frequently fought on the frontline of battles from his teenage years to middle age, because of the protection his armour provided him (he finally died to a crossbow bolt because he took off his armour).

Isaac Komnenos, Byzantine Emperor, was once stabbed by two different spears at the same time while wearing mail and was completely uninjured.

This is a fantastic source about mail, anyone who wants to use the word "real" in an armour discussion should read it: http://myarmoury.com/feature_mail.html

Realism aside, feeling "uneasy" should not be more important than having fun. I want to get in there and crack heads without having to die to random bull**** arrows from the back of the fight I couldn't do anything about.

The current weak state of armour means that the player never has time to use tactics in battles because melee fights never last longer than a minute, and because arrows do so much damage through armour, the obvious best tactic is just to spam archers or horse archers with barely any infantry necessary. It means it isn't worth spending 294749 denars on a helmet that doesn't increase your protection from a headshot at all. It means it isn't worth taking the headshot damage perk because you can one shot everyone without it as their helmets do nothing. It means high tier enemies like Lords, Banner Knights, and Elite Cataphracts don't really feel like a threat to the player when you can one shot them with your glaive or snipe them to death in a few hits. It means the player's high tier troops die easily to looters and so does the player, removing a sense of progression or achievement when you work so hard to get high tier troops or good armour.

Why do you look at all of these downsides and think it is more important for the player to feel uneasy?

Buffing armour to something more similar to Warband (but without 0 damage attacks) is not going to remove all sense of unease from the game or make the player invincible, surely you can admit. In Warband the only time you felt invincible was when you were facing ranged attacks from the weakest enemies in the game as a high level player; and that's a good thing.

There are no good reasons at this point not to buff armour, not even personal preference, as the people who prefer weak armour are in the minority.
But we can all agree Cavalry is in a terrible state
For sure.
 
the only one who is smart
i just played too much, no smarty here
take 7 hits from a distant archer
you should be aware of good troops, that's just how it should be, any low tier archer you can easily tank 20 from
Richard the 1st of England frequently fought on the frontline
this looks a bit like propaganda but you like to think he actually he did look at how that turned out for him. a man of such importance shouldn't risk his life because he has some well crafted armor. the same reason Knights were used carefully and not bashed into lines all the times. yes sure you can find the odd battle here and there to prove any point but remember one thing about the past, it's recorded by memory not reality. people today still think Napoleon is short just to say how effective English propaganda was. wouldn't be surprised if the same happened multiple times to increase the popularity of any ruler or decrease the one of an enemy.
I understand people don't like the armor as it is i don't blame them, but RBM is not just better, it's a modification with it's own balancing issues.
Also another thing to not, this is a personal belief. i am pretty sure TW doesn't balance around Bannerlord difficulty. if you make your guy take 50% less damage you can get your Warband level of protection. it's in the game already
 
you should be aware of good troops, that's just how it should be, any low tier archer you can easily tank 20 from
You can not. Even militia archers can tear you up with belly shots to the max body armor pieces. Perhaps at absolute max distance, you may take enough reduced damage to take 7 or 8 shots, but this is a situation that only comes up when going into a siege map alone where they won't move and going far back and elevated from them. In any normal situation you get at most 4-5 shots form normal ranged, less with high tiers and oh did you think you would be moving TOWARDS enemy fire, enjoy massive speed boosted damage.

Now if you mean with reduced damage setting, I don't know about that but that isn't usually what we are considering with armor/damage issues.
If you somehow mean using a shield to absorb shots, that is completely different and not what anyone is talking about. When people say tank/tanky, they mean able to absorb damage safely. This doesn't exist in bannerlord. Outplaying the AI is also not what the damage/armor issue is about.

Athletics number 1
What do you mean? The first perk? Or do mean the whole perk tree? Fighting on foot is meme for a joke playthrough, even if you maxed it you might survive one more blow or shot. This is neither tanky or worth wasting attributes on such a petty boon.
then one in bow
Skirmish phase master? It's not enough to matter, I've done games with and without it, it makes no discernable difference, the other perk is much better.
 
if you make your guy take 50% less damage you can get your Warband level of protection. it's in the game already

This topic isn't about just the player, it's about the universal application of armor, which also includes the player's troops, allied troops, and opposing forces' troops.

Simply saying "Oh, well you can just turn the player damage down to 50%. See? Problem solved!" doesn't actually address the core issue and honestly comes off as a flippant Taleworlds-esque response to a problem the community has been ticked off about since 2020.
 
You should be aware of good troops, that's just how it should be, any low tier archer you can easily tank 20 from
Being aware won't stop the arrow before it hits me and takes away a chunk of my health in the thick of battle though. How can I focus on archers at the back of the fight while also trying to fight 3 guys in melee and swinging my weapon/camera around?

You definitely can't tank 20 hits from low tier archers, I've tested it.
this looks a bit like propaganda
I've read an Arabic source confirming that Richard actually rode up and down in front of Saladin's lines from a close distance to try and taunt them out of formation. I haven't found any Arabic ones confirming that he was a frontline fighter (then again I didn't look very hard), but I think there is a pretty conclusive amount of evidence that the Crusaders considered Richard to be a frontline fighter, even his rivals from different European countries who would have wanted to taint his name.
but you like to think he actually he did look at how that turned out for him. a man of such importance shouldn't risk his life because he has some well crafted armor
They occasionally did, and they were fine. Richard only died to that crossbow because he wasn't wearing his armour at the time. Double mail with padding, while very expensive, was considered almost arrowproof.
the same reason Knights were used carefully and not bashed into lines all the times
? That was their whole job, especially in the time period Bannerlord represents.
I understand people don't like the armor as it is i don't blame them, but RBM is not just better, it's a modification with it's own balancing issues
I do agree with you here.
Also another thing to not, this is a personal belief. i am pretty sure TW doesn't balance around Bannerlord difficulty. if you make your guy take 50% less damage you can get your Warband level of protection. it's in the game already
Making my guy take 50% less damage doesn't solve most of the issues I listed. Expensive armour still isn't worth its cost/high tier troops still aren't good so you don't get a sense of progression, high tier enemies still feel too easy to kill, battles will still be too short for the player to enjoy them or use tactics, headshot perks still aren't worth it, archers will still be the most OP troop type making tactics pointless, etc.

Fixing armour will fix all these things.
 
Also another thing to not, this is a personal belief. i am pretty sure TW doesn't balance around Bannerlord difficulty. if you make your guy take 50% less damage you can get your Warband level of protection. it's in the game already
Besides everything else, this is the one thing that is just absurd and a half-assed approach to the solution (as someone from TW also suggested a while back); yes, the option is there but that is more for a difficulty slider vs improving gameplay.
I don't think the crux of all these complains we have with armor/protection/damage is that it makes the game is 'too hard for the players'. The game is stupidly easy and simplistic even as is at max settings.
 
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