ArnulfFloyd
Knight at Arms
Good observations, but if BL is balanced since first day, players will play basegame for months, considering so many modern games were broken, I am a bit suspicious regarding balance
-
If you are reporting a bug, please head over to our Technical Support section for Bannerlord.
Weapons and combat balance
- Thread starter Bladerider
- Start date
Users who are viewing this thread
Knight at Arms
given that i was the one that mixed things up and assumed that both the first videos were sieges i am assuming you are asking me and not Orion.Bladerider said:
i have already stated that i do in fact agree with your statement, there is unbalance going on.
there is still urban combat. overall all three should have a role and be desirable within the army. that being said i am not sure if all 3 are required to get the same kills overall, though if their only function is to get kills then yes you would then want all of them to average out fairly close to each other across all battle types weighted for how often those battle types tend to happen for all players averaged out.
if something is balanced or not is factual like 2*2=4 however that being said, figuring out if something is balanced can be very difficult due to the number of variables involved. this means that there can be debate in if something is balanced due to the question of data interpretation. let's say there is a 'medic' unit in the game, and some people say it is way too powerful. some other people say that it is far too weak. the ones saying how powerful it is point to how there is no situation you would ever want to not have at least one in your force, and by adding more medics to your army on average decreases the losses you take (and thus expenses of hiring and retraining new troops) by a greater amount than they take up. the other side says that the medics on average kills only 1 person every ten battles, making them dead weight. one side shows that having no medics in the army yields losses on average greater than what is typically sustainable, while the other side shows that an army with nothing but medics never win a fight against even the weakest opponents. as the debate rages they find that the ideal number of medics in the army is about 10% on average. one side claims that is too little given that any other unit can be made up of 50% or more and still be highly effective. the other side claims that the results of just 10% is far too good relative to having any other unit in the game compared to any other unit in the game. thus you have a debate about balance, even when the numbers are all agreed upon and no one is lying or dealing with bad information. perception varies between people, but the unit medic is working as intended and the difficulty of everything that interacts with the units in the game is built on on that balance. the net result is a balanced game, and the medic is a part of that balance. it is factually balanced, and nerfing or buffing the medic requires further work to ensure that everything stays in equilibrium.
both of us i think are in agreement that overall the archer should end up with the same average kills as other footmen, cavalry usually is more expensive, so they might be more effective though. it would feel off if the archers are the most expensive unit in the game, so having them be the best fighter in all situations would seem to me to be a flaw in the balance.
as for people dying with one shot, this is true, but if you look at the melee strikes you see the same thing. most hits are 1 hit kills, even without the extra momentum from running (typically via cavalry charge). the player takes several hits, and this is due to difficulty settings most likely (similar to M&B being able to reduce damage to yourself in the options). so this means that archers doing too much damage is not a definite cause, and in fact is quite questionable based on preference of relative killing power versus melee weapons. this is why i think overall percentage comparisons are a good number set to use, as it doesn't argue about if something does too much damage, or any other specific attribute. overall you have shown that the archers are more effective than the other unit types. based on expectations derived from the first game and historical precedent one would expect them to be weaker than cavalry. in the first game they of similar cost as infantry, and so were of similar effectiveness overall. historically they cost more than basic infantry, and were more effective, but less than cavalry in both effectiveness and cost. i guess it could aim for the feel of some other game and have the archers be weaker than infantry over all, but the examples of them costing more than cavalry are few and far between. if they are more effective (or weaker) than something then they should cost proportionately as well.
jamoecw said:
Since as you have said you already stated your agreement and Orion mentioned here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,378245.msg9017968.html#msg9017968
about the first and second videos being about sieges, my comment was in fact more oriented towards him.
I personally would prefer if archers were more a support unit instead of killers. They can be very useful without being the ones who kill. For example in the open field they can force a group of spearmen to either face them to block their arrows being exposed to the charge of a group of horsemen in their rear or face the horsemen while being wounded by arrows that would eventually kill a big amount of them. For that, huge damage per shot is not required. Of course in the sieges they would be more effective, but not to the point of making much more percentage of kills than the percentage they are in their army.
Certainly, the balance I was considering was only about percentage of kills done compared to percentage of the unit in the army.
When I said that something being balanced or not is not debatable I meant it in the way that, accepting a definition of balance, the thing whose balance is being checked either fits or not.
But I was terribly wrong with the definition, as you have pointed out the cost of the units should be considered in order to assign the effectiveness at killing of each unit and other factors can be considered too. So even though my statement wasn't about the definition not being debatable, it was very audacious and arrogant.
Anyway, if we apply those changes to estimate the balance, I think that archers would be considered more imbalanced.
Overall, I agree with you in the broad strokes.
Edit: Just noticed that I added a question about the definition being debatable in my last comment, so certainly that was wrong and arrogant.
I agree with the statement, given that we understand it's also unduly influenced by the state of the AI in the videos we are analyzing.Bladerider said:
That is debatable. You yourself have advocated for archers filling a supporting role rather than a damage-dealing role. If that were the case, then archers would have a disproportionately low amount of kills. Whether this is balanced or not is dependent on your balance goals. If we want to consider each class as having identical roles, then their kills should be proportionate. If we accept that their roles may be different, then their proportion of kills is no longer a meaningful measure of their balance.
See the above. Balance between things that are not measured by the same metrics cannot be objective, and so they must be evaluated subjectively. Some things just aren't going to be as competitive as their alternatives. Who used the hunting bow in Warband when the short bow was so accessible and did more damage?
That second archer is terrible and misses most of his shots.
Also, we don't have any displayed damage numbers in either of those videos so we don't know how much disparity there is between ranged and melee damage. The third video you posted previously has visible damage numbers, and we can see that the player's melee damage is consistently 60+ and even goes above 120, while most of the player's bow shots deal between 30 and 40 damage. It's worth noting that we don't know the player character's stats & attributes, but the AI's damage seems similar. During the charge at 2:37 the player is shot at close range by an archer and takes 12 damage. He's shot twice more after that for 8 damage each time. He then is struck by a sword for 18 damage, shot in the leg for 6, and he dismounts shortly after to engage on foot. He is subsequently hit in melee a few times, for 12, 1 (a glance), and 11 damage. Finally, he eats an axe for 17 damage. Even including the glancing melee blow, the average damage dealt to the player by arrows is significantly less than that dealt by melee attacks (8.5 for arrows vs. 11.8 including the glance, or 14.5 without it). With this (admittedly limited) data, I would say that arrows seem to deal about 30-50% less damage than melee attacks.Definitely going to disagree with that one, assuming accuracy works the same as it does in Warband. I would appeal to another authority on this one, specifically the best competitive Warband archer in North America (Lagstro), who has discussed this particular topic at length already. I can probably dig up the thread if you want to read it.
So? Should javelins be instant-kill weapons in a video game, especially if their quantity per stack is increased? That sounds ridiculous to me, as they would become very unbalanced in multiplayer. They're already quite powerful.
What does a veles do when they run out of javelins? Do they not become a regular infantryman then? At their core I would say they are still melee infantry, as they have all the characteristics of melee infantry. They have javelins for skirmishing, but the skirmish is over before the bulk of the fighting begins. They're also footmen with melee weapons & shields, and that's what they inevitably become when their javelins are gone. By comparison, an archer who runs out of arrows can't fill the shoes of an infantryman because he has lower melee skills and likely no shield. I'm not sure how serious you're being when you say you want javelins to be fatal in most--if not all--cases and you want to be able to carry so many of them that they become a viable primary armament. What made them a primary weapon for velites wasn't the quantity they carried ('cause it wasn't much, you can't conveniently carry a dozen or more javelins) but rather that the velites typically became reserve infantry after skirmishing was done, pulling back behind their formation to support them in melee if needed. The bulk of their fighting was done with javelins because they essentially quit the field once they threw them.
Let me dwell a little more on actual damage numbers. We can see in the video I'm providing below, at approximately 11:20 the player leading the infantry separates from his group and the archer who is recording focuses exclusively on them, and they are at close range. Assuming the infantry player has taken no damage before this point in the video (which is assuming a lot), we can see that he takes 4 non-fatal shots from the archer player and 1 non-fatal shot from an AI archer. We don't know how much the AI archer did, but the archer player dealt 71 damage on top of the AI's shot without killing the infantry player. We can also infer from how much damage players deal to AI and how much damage AI deals to players throughout the video that the players seem to be dealing double damage to AI while taking only half damage from AI. Therefore, we can estimate that the AI archer's arrow did approximately 9 damage (the average for the player archer's arrows is 17.8 damage per shot against other players, which rounds to 1
. The killing blow is 18 damage, and while we don't know how much of that was overkill I would say it's safe to assume based on these numbers that the infantry player has minimum 98 health. With a health pool of at least 98 and an average damage per arrow of 18, the infantry player could reasonably expect to survive 5 body shots from an archer at close range. I don't see how this is unreasonable, or how anyone could think the archer is dealing too much damage. If anything, the archer is too weak. one of the big issues with pre release footage and making judgments about the final product is that they are still tweaking numbers and putting in features or taking them out. in other videos the arrows were one shot one kill for the most part, with melee weapons killing multiple people on many occasions. some videos have archers having to hit several times to kill someone, and melee weapons only killing one person at a time. infantry not using their shields against arrows sometimes, other times using it quite well. cavalry riding through people like they are weightless and other time being stopped by them like they are made of lead.
the people playing the games are at different skill levels, sometimes they look like they are at AI level, barely able to play the game, other times they seem like skilled players. sometimes they have their cavalry sit still while infantry walk up to them, other times they use them to slip around the infantry and hit the archers from the flank. sometimes the archers stand alone against infantry and cavalry without anything to stop the enemies, sometimes they are at the flank of the enemy while they are fighting infantry.
heck even things that are said to be in the game by the devs in those type of videos is just stuff they are working or planning on, those things may get axed before release.
the people playing the games are at different skill levels, sometimes they look like they are at AI level, barely able to play the game, other times they seem like skilled players. sometimes they have their cavalry sit still while infantry walk up to them, other times they use them to slip around the infantry and hit the archers from the flank. sometimes the archers stand alone against infantry and cavalry without anything to stop the enemies, sometimes they are at the flank of the enemy while they are fighting infantry.
heck even things that are said to be in the game by the devs in those type of videos is just stuff they are working or planning on, those things may get axed before release.
Rainbow Dash said:
That makes no **** sense, it ain't fun > realism, it's "WHATEVER SUITS YOUR BRAIN" > "WHAT OTHERS WANT". Realism doesn't equal fun but it also doesn't equal boring. It all depends on what the end user desires. Other than that though, I do agree that the base game needs to accessible to many players, so making bows function in a purely realistic manner should only be reserved for mods or a realistic mode.
Again, balance is important, not just balancing different weapons and play styles against each other for competitive multiplayer, but also balancing the amount of "realism" versus the amount of "balance" that is built into the game. If it's all "balanced" to the point where it's clearly unrealistic, that's not fun for a lot of players. If it's entirely realistic, but clearly unbalanced, that's not fun for another group. It has to be "somewhat realistic" and "somewhat balanced", but pushing too far toward either goal to the point where it detracts heavily from the other would be a mistake.
For some, it's fun because it's realistic enough to be believable.
For some, it's fun because it's unrealistic enough to be somewhat balanced.
I don't hear a lot of players praising it because it's so unrealistic.....
Walking that titerope has been the main selling point of M&B so far.
For some, it's fun because it's realistic enough to be believable.
For some, it's fun because it's unrealistic enough to be somewhat balanced.
I don't hear a lot of players praising it because it's so unrealistic.....
Walking that titerope has been the main selling point of M&B so far.
Orion said:I agree with the statement, given that we understand it's also unduly influenced by the state of the AI in the videos we are analyzing.Bladerider said:
That is debatable. You yourself have advocated for archers filling a supporting role rather than a damage-dealing role. If that were the case, then archers would have a disproportionately low amount of kills. Whether this is balanced or not is dependent on your balance goals. If we want to consider each class as having identical roles, then their kills should be proportionate. If we accept that their roles may be different, then their proportion of kills is no longer a meaningful measure of their balance.
See the above. Balance between things that are not measured by the same metrics cannot be objective, and so they must be evaluated subjectively. Some things just aren't going to be as competitive as their alternatives. Who used the hunting bow in Warband when the short bow was so accessible and did more damage?
That second archer is terrible and misses most of his shots.
Definitely going to disagree with that one, assuming accuracy works the same as it does in Warband. I would appeal to another authority on this one, specifically the best competitive Warband archer in North America (Lagstro), who has discussed this particular topic at length already. I can probably dig up the thread if you want to read it.
So? Should javelins be instant-kill weapons in a video game, especially if their quantity per stack is increased? That sounds ridiculous to me, as they would become very unbalanced in multiplayer. They're already quite powerful.
What does a veles do when they run out of javelins? Do they not become a regular infantryman then? At their core I would say they are still melee infantry, as they have all the characteristics of melee infantry. They have javelins for skirmishing, but the skirmish is over before the bulk of the fighting begins. They're also footmen with melee weapons & shields, and that's what they inevitably become when their javelins are gone. By comparison, an archer who runs out of arrows can't fill the shoes of an infantryman because he has lower melee skills and likely no shield. I'm not sure how serious you're being when you say you want javelins to be fatal in most--if not all--cases and you want to be able to carry so many of them that they become a viable primary armament. What made them a primary weapon for velites wasn't the quantity they carried ('cause it wasn't much, you can't conveniently carry a dozen or more javelins) but rather that the velites typically became reserve infantry after skirmishing was done, pulling back behind their formation to support them in melee if needed. The bulk of their fighting was done with javelins because they essentially quit the field once they threw them.
Let me dwell a little more on actual damage numbers. We can see in the video I'm providing below, at approximately 11:20 the player leading the infantry separates from his group and the archer who is recording focuses exclusively on them, and they are at close range. Assuming the infantry player has taken no damage before this point in the video (which is assuming a lot), we can see that he takes 4 non-fatal shots from the archer player and 1 non-fatal shot from an AI archer. We don't know how much the AI archer did, but the archer player dealt 71 damage on top of the AI's shot without killing the infantry player. We can also infer from how much damage players deal to AI and how much damage AI deals to players throughout the video that the players seem to be dealing double damage to AI while taking only half damage from AI. Therefore, we can estimate that the AI archer's arrow did approximately 9 damage (the average for the player archer's arrows is 17.8 damage per shot against other players, which rounds to 1
That is debatable in a objective way. I already admited that I was wrong in that definition of balance because I forgot the troop cost as jamoecw pointed out, and other factors can be considered. But there isn't any subjective consideration in that.
My personal preference can be done in singleplayer in diferent ways, for example:
-Straight up making archers imbalanced being them weaker at killing. Being this imbalance objective.
-Considering factors like the costs to make them balanced by being much cheaper. So the balance is objective, but only about troops. The bows/crossbows wouldn't be as deadly as other weapons when used by the player so that would be a balance issue.
In both cases they would still be desirable in the army for the reasons I mentioned in previous comments. But, even though in the second it would be partially balanced, it is not balanced.
In multiplayer with my personal preference archers would be like medic and musician classes in Napoleonic Wars. These classes are desirable in the team but they are clearly weaker than the other classes at killing. And since that game is mostly about killing that classes are objectively imbalanced, being underpowered.
Anyway, I have never suggested here anything related to my personal preference.
That second archer is terrible and misses most of his shots.
Probably neither Eithne or Eren are the best examples because they are the main playable character in their respective videos. So I will skip this and focus on the video you added in your edit later. I will just point out that one of the 8 damage is done by a sword and not an arrow.
A link would be apreciated for sure.
How many arrows would be needed to kill that same archer? If the javelins needed are the same or more than the arrows, then we have a balance issue. Javelins are too few compared to arrows and the slot required for the bow is already balanced by having lower accuracy and range with the javelins.
Has the quantity been increased? In some of Gamescon 2018 videos we can see javelins with only 3 ammo. Maybe in other cases is more beacuse they are a weaker type like darts or they are using two slots.
Since velites, in order to use javelins as primary weapon, would need points invested in throwing skill, as archers need in power draw, they wouldn't have too different melee skills.
If javelins neither kill enemies or destroy shields, they are completely useless as primary weapon.
I want javelins to be fatal depending on the number carried. If the number carried is only 3, then it wouldn't be too much to kill or almost kill heavy armored enemies. I think that I never suggested an increase of the ammo. I just pointed out the low ammo as a reason for them to make considerably more damage than arrows/bolts.
Let me dwell a little more on actual damage numbers. We can see in the video I'm providing below, at approximately 11:20 the player leading the infantry separates from his group and the archer who is recording focuses exclusively on them, and they are at close range. Assuming the infantry player has taken no damage before this point in the video (which is assuming a lot), we can see that he takes 4 non-fatal shots from the archer player and 1 non-fatal shot from an AI archer. We don't know how much the AI archer did, but the archer player dealt 71 damage on top of the AI's shot without killing the infantry player. We can also infer from how much damage players deal to AI and how much damage AI deals to players throughout the video that the players seem to be dealing double damage to AI while taking only half damage from AI. Therefore, we can estimate that the AI archer's arrow did approximately 9 damage (the average for the player archer's arrows is 17.8 damage per shot against other players, which rounds to 1
Considering who deals damage and who receives damage, I think that in this video and the other captain mode videos all troops deal 100% damage. The difference is the reduction in the receiving side. AI receives 100% damage from players and AI; but players receive 25% from AI and 50% from other players.
With that reduction factors we can estimate, using the 17.8 average that you provided, that the average damage per shot would be 35 rounding down.
In this video https://youtu.be/JaUBg7Ynmwk?t=415 we can see that the health of the legionaire is 120.
With that we can estimate that 120/35=3.43 => 4 shots kill the legionaire in the worst of cases (worst from archer perspective) because here https://youtu.be/tv6I-CzZJLU?t=655 we can see, earlier in the video you linked, that at longer distance the damage can be similar or even higher (depending on which part of the enemy body the shot lands I guess).
In that same video https://youtu.be/tv6I-CzZJLU?t=596 we can see the player dealing 48 and 66 damage to heavy cavalry. Here https://youtu.be/JaUBg7Ynmwk?t=7 we can see that their health is 110. So 110/((48+66)/2)=1.93 => 2 shots would be enough to kill the heavy cavalry.
With that numbers I think that it is too easy for archers to kill the heavy infantry and the heavy cavalry.
Since you mentioned Lagstro, I searched posts in which he debates about archery:
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,371821.msg8872205.html#msg8872205
This is the same you added in the edit so I have nothing else to say about it.
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,368377.msg8829860.html#msg8829860
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,368377.msg8829988.html#msg8829988
These two comments are a huge bias. He tests only the archers that are the weakest at melee and he exploits the cutting, piercing and blunt damage mechanic to obtain the results he wants. (He doesn't use piercing weapons available for archers)
I won't add more right now but I found more comments that look like bias and half truths to me.
First, since you requested it, here's a post Lagstro made about the accuracy nerf that we've seen in Bannerlord & the behavior of a similar nerf made in various mods: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,369153.msg8827281.html#msg8827281
Shortly after your last post, Lagstro & I tested bow dispersion at medium and long range with various archer classes and bows. The amount of dispersion with Warband's 99 accuracy bows is nuts, with most archer classes and bows being unable to land much more than half of their shots on a man-sized target at long range using a fixed point of aim. The notable exception is the shortbow, which has the lowest stat requirements and thus receives the greatest boost to accuracy from power draw and bow proficiency. Even then, at long range it could not land more than ~75% of arrows within a man-sized target using a fixed point of aim. Because it also has very low projectile velocity, the amount of vertical compensation required is significant, the damage drop-off is immense, and though we did not test it against moving targets it follows from the low velocity that more horizontal compensation would be required, all of which increase the difficulty of the shot and reduce its effectiveness.
Shortly after your last post, Lagstro & I tested bow dispersion at medium and long range with various archer classes and bows. The amount of dispersion with Warband's 99 accuracy bows is nuts, with most archer classes and bows being unable to land much more than half of their shots on a man-sized target at long range using a fixed point of aim. The notable exception is the shortbow, which has the lowest stat requirements and thus receives the greatest boost to accuracy from power draw and bow proficiency. Even then, at long range it could not land more than ~75% of arrows within a man-sized target using a fixed point of aim. Because it also has very low projectile velocity, the amount of vertical compensation required is significant, the damage drop-off is immense, and though we did not test it against moving targets it follows from the low velocity that more horizontal compensation would be required, all of which increase the difficulty of the shot and reduce its effectiveness.
All archers are weakest at melee, having 2 power strike at most. If it makes you feel better about the results in the video, there's only one faction with archers that have more than 0 power strike, and that would be Nords. Crossbowmen also have 2 power strike, but I don't think anyone here is arguing that crossbows are over/underpowered. It's also worth mentioning that only Rhodok Crossbowmen have access to a respectable piercing melee weapon, but testing it would be pointless because blunt has a stronger armor-penetrating effect than pierce (and thus should be even more effective). He doesn't "exploit" the damage mechanic, he clearly tests a blunt weapon along with the most commonly used weapons (which are all cutting weapons), and the result is predictable: it kills in significantly fewer swings, but even this is at least double the swings that an infantry player requires to kill the same target with the same weapon. In theory, a piercing weapon would fall somewhere between the blunt and cutting weapons, so again, it's not really worthwhile to test. Let's also not forget that infantry get access to better weapons overall, and so their potential is even greater. This isn't to say that infantry are too strong in melee, but that archers are so weak as to not even stand a chance. It is--in fact--possible for an infantry player to simply hold W while swinging mindlessly at an archer and still kill them first. This is, of course, assuming that the archer is actively defending themselves. The archer can prolong the fight as long as they want through blocking, but as soon as they make an attempt to swing against infantry they are gambling on their hit landing first and dealing enough damage to stagger the infantry. If the hit does not land first then obviously the archer will take a hit, and if the hit does land first but doesn't deal enough damage to stagger then the archer will still take a hit. This is all basic stuff that applies to all classes in theory, but in practice archers land so many non-staggering blows that it's actually viable for infantry to engage them recklessly. You can count on an archer glancing off with about half of their swings, and in the best armor available it's actually only possible to reliably stagger with blows to the head.Bladerider said:
Based on the health and damage numbers we've seen so far, 3 or 4 arrows if there were no headshots. It would probably take 2 javelins assuming no headshots. It would probably take 2 headshots with a bow at anything but extremely close range, while it would only take a single javelin headshot. Nobody is saying javelins are underpowered. On the contrary, the current consensus in competitive Warband play is that javelins are too easy to get for how powerful they are (Nords are notorious for passing javelins around to all of their infantry & cavalry).Bladerider said:
Orion said:
1
That comment is basically the same you did in the first page of this thread and I already answered that.
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,378245.msg9008116.html#msg9008116
"Then I want javelins with 99 accuracy so it is not a dice roll.... The accuracy works just as a way to limit range effectiveness. Javelins have low accuracy so you don't have a high chance to hit someone that is too far away from your suposed short-mid range. The same can be applied over bows, being much more accurate than javelins of course."
The worst aim I have seen for bows in Bannerlord footage is 92 and for javelins it is 80.
2
It would be really helpful if you show in an image what do you consider long range.
3
I considered both bowmen and crossbowmen as archers. With that consideration, out of 6 factions 3 have archers with 2 power strike and the other three 0. Using only 2 of the archers with 0 is using the weakest.
In the main post of this thread crossbows are mentioned with bows as being too powerful.
About the damage mechanics you are right, I mixed it with this:
https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/56
"Damage Types
Before we move on, it would probably be helpful for us to explain the different types of damage you can inflict in Bannerlord. We use three different types of damage for melee weapons: blunt, pierce and cut. A single weapon can perform a different type of damage depending on which attack you use. So, if we take swords as an example, a thrust attack would cause piercing damage, whereas as slash would perform cutting damage.
The different types of damage are affected by the type of armour they come into contact with. Cutting damage is more effective against lighter armour, piercing damage is more effective against heavy armour, and blunt damage falls somewhere in between the two, giving a more consistent result across the board. "
You justify the use of cutting weapons because they are the "most commonly used". Then, why is the test only with heavy armor when the most common armor is lighter?
It is just using a rare case to make archers look weak. The test lacks the possible relative movement between opponents that can buff the damage. And archers are not prevented to attack the head in melee which would increase the damage too.
Unless you play multiplayer with different options than the used where I play, heavy armor is really rare. Where I play the initial "money" goes from 1500 through 1600 to 1800, being 1800 the most common. To increase that for the next spawn it is needed to kill enemies and death is punished losing "money". This way to be able to afford heavy armor a player needs to kill a good amount of enemies with each "life". This in a server with max 200 players, maybe average of 120, means that only a few of them will have this kind of armor. Because obviously for someone to make a good K/D ratio, to be able to buy heavy armor, other people will have to die a lot.
I could go deeper in this explanation and that would help to defend my point about this (Second quote):
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,378245.msg9013266.html#msg9013266
Anyway in Bannerlord it looks like archers will be perfectly capable against heavy armored foes in melee. (Damage modifiers must be considered)
https://youtu.be/ldYi2ITaFDg?t=790
4
To make that statement you should prove that your idea of what the damage modifiers are is the correct one. In my previous comment I explain how I understand it and its implications.
5
I am saying it, and it looks like I am not alone (about single player and noncompetitive multiplayer):
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,378245.msg9010471.html#msg9010471
6
Were all the members of the competitive involved in that consensus? Where was that consensus made? Which percentage of the community is into competitive? Is the competitive community more important than the rest of M&B community?
Considering the OurGloriousLeader's comment I linked, I think that maybe different balance should be done not only for single and multiplayer but for the different multiplayer modes too.
About nords passing javelins, I think it is more a problem about nord horsemen having them for free than anything else.
I answer myself about the number of javelins being increased. At least in the captain mode it has been increased.
https://youtu.be/ldYi2ITaFDg?t=492
Notice that well supplied perk is used so further analysis should be done.
Edit to give the relevant time in the videos because using the youtube command it doesn't work.
in this regard their was a lot of talk about this way back in the day. javelins were not really supposed to be a regular primary weapon, just like the 2 handers, at least that was my impression on the consensus. someone using javelins as a primary weapon has an advantage over an archer, and given that in single player the armies are almost always mixed that means that it isn't a good choice to main as such. in multiplayer it can do well if you are facing a team with a good archer, though in normal battle you need to get close to your enemy making it easy for him to charge you and get you into melee (a big disadvantage) and you can't just toss them out like arrows as you will run out rather quick. as a boost to a melee set up it is nice, as you get a bit of a punch and can get to those that manage to get in places that you can't really get to.Bladerider said:
2 handers are very good in duels, but weak in all other situations. this means that using a 1 handed weapon, a shield and a 2 handed weapon is a good combo that you can chuck in javs for the hell of it, though a second shield might be good as well.
the context of them being underpowered is as a mainline weapon, though to be fair 1 handed weapons are the best hands down, bows the second, crossbows a close third (best in the ranged department, enough that it makes up for the problem with melee), then 1 handed polearm, then 2 handed weapon, then throwing, then 2 handed polearms. as a secondary weapon on foot it goes more along the lines of 1 handed weapons, 2 handed weapons, throwing, polearms (both 1 and 2 handed), crossbows, then finally bows.
of course in single player you need to kill more, so small ammo sizes hurt more, though melee weapons are infinite ammo which means that bows and crossbows are being all the melee weapons in that regards (just not as bad as throwing). in noncompetitive multiplayer you are more on your own, so being able to score a kill against someone trying to charge you is a bigger deal, so weapons that do a lot of damage with very good reach and can take someone chest bumping you is nice which puts throwing at a bigger advantage than other weapons in this regards. overall they are both a moderate primary weapon and a fairly good secondary weapon so it will not do either very well.
1: Unless you treat throwing like your one job that you get paid immense amounts of money for (e.g. you're a major league baseball pitcher) then your accuracy is not going to be that high. Then again, the way accuracy seems to work in Warband is that it's actually a theoretical max which--if you have high enough proficiency--you can achieve. Realistically, unless you greatly exceed the minimum requirements for a ranged weapon then you won't ever achieve that 99 accuracy. This is demonstrated in Warband through controlled tests like I performed with archers, where their differences in proficiencies/power draw are readily apparent. If accuracy functions in a similar way in Bannerlord, then I wouldn't be opposed to throwing weapons having higher maximum accuracy potential. I would not want them to be significantly more accurate in multiplayer than they are in Warband, though, which could be achieved by tweaking throwing skill on MP classes.
2: When I get a chance I'll update this line with an image to show my idea of long & medium range.
3:
). If this same player scores a couple of kills and wins the second round, then they may be in all but the absolute best armor going into the third round. The cost difference between the best and second-best armor for most factions is severe, and while the stat difference also looks large we must take into consideration that armor increases offer diminishing returns after a certain point, dependent on your opponent's melee potential.
Referring back 2 paragraphs, where infantry required the same number of swings to kill with blunt weapons as with some cutting weapons, this is attributable to the way damage is calculated. For the infantryman, we can see that the greater raw damage value on the swords is enough to make up for the lack of armor penetrating capability because of their power strike & proficiency, and while the mace has lower raw damage it ignores enough armor to be just as viable damage-wise as the cutting weapons. For archers we could expect the same trend to hold true, except their low power-strike reduces their melee potential to the point where many of their swings are totally ineffective glancing blows. The interesting thing to note here is that--because it ignores a hefty percentage of armor--the number of glances with the mace was much lower, meaning it landed damaging strikes more consistently. It is easy to see why infantry seldom glance while archers glance quite often, even with the same weapons. Infantry get a significantly larger boost to pre-reduction damage through their power strike and proficiency. Barring a negative speed bonus, it is unlikely for the infantryman to deal so little damage that they cannot overcome the modified armor value, ergo they consistently deal damage with each blow. For archers, their power strike bonus is smaller or zero, so their raw damage before speed bonus is closer to the raw damage listed on the weapon. With a cutting weapon, this means that armor with an armor value just a little (~10 points) above the raw damage of the weapon has a good chance to mitigate all incoming damage from an archer's melee attack. The only way to overcome this is with good speed bonuses, luck, or a blunt weapon, because armor value is also randomized between 50% and 100% of the armor's displayed value for each hit. Maces can reduce that significantly, but cutting weapons won't. It's worth pointing out that only Vaegir archers and Rhodok crossbowmen get access to blunt weapons, and they also get the only piercing weapons (though the Vaegir piercing weapon is only 19p with 70 reach, arguably the worst weapon in the game).
Now, when we take into consideration the more readily available armor upgrades for infantry and the worse weapon availability to most archers & crossbowmen, as well as the worse melee stats for ranged classes, it becomes apparent that they do not remain competitive in melee against infantry beyond the first or second round of a map, especially if they lose. Snowballing is another problem in Warband which Bannerlord has already taken steps to address through mostly fixed class loadouts, but the downside to this is that a player can select a heavy infantry class without earning it through skillful play and--in circumstances like Warband's--be more-or-less impervious to archers in melee.
4:
as a point to estimate the health total of the archer in question (~90). With this information, I would estimate that the archer in question would take 3 or 4 arrows to kill. Beyond that, I can only assume that damage of javelins relative to arrows is in line with Warband's, so it would likely take 2 javelins to kill the archer.
5: The link you provided only proves my point further. Here's the example in question, with relevant part bolded:
6:
As for which is more important, I feel some qualifying statements should be made before I give you my opinion on that. First, more important for what purpose? Second, to what degree? If the purpose is for making balancing decisions, then yes, absolutely, the competitive community's opinions are not only more important, they are most important. This is because very few people outside of the competitive community will feel as affected by minor, seemingly trivial differences in stats, or have as much experience playing the game in a structured environment where balance is paramount to ensuring the validity & meaning of outcomes. Nobody has as much reason to care about balance as competitive players do, because their enjoyment of the game is affected by it to a much greater degree than someone who spends the majority of their time playing casual MP, SP, or mods. That being said, the degree of importance attributed to a competitive player vs. a casual player's opinion should not be so drastically different that the casual player's opinion is effectively discounted. We are, after all, playing the same game. It is also not necessary for someone to have played competitively before they could have any ideas which are beneficial to the game.
Therefore, it is my opinion that the opinions of competitive players with regards to balance should be weighted more than those of others, but ideas from all parties should be considered so that good ideas do not go unnoticed. That's why I'm here, discussing this with you, even though I think you're not a competitive player.
2: When I get a chance I'll update this line with an image to show my idea of long & medium range.
3:
That's neat, but crossbows were given better melee capability because they have a long reload time which they are immobile for (ergo, they're more likely to get caught in melee because they are less mobile while firing & reloading). This notion is also borne out by giving them direct access to shields. What you consider to be the same is irrelevant, because the distinction was clearly made already. This distinction was also purposefully made, as originally Vaegir & Sarranid archers were more capable in melee with higher power strike & athletics, as well as better weapon options (notably, Vaegirs had scimitars). Nords got higher power strike because they have the worst bow selection, exclusively cutting melee weapons (though they're among the best), and for thematic reasons. Some archers were deliberately nerfed harder than others, with Vaegirs seeing the biggest hit through more expensive armor, loss of quality melee weapons, and loss of athletics & power strike. This is because Vaegirs have the best bow options, ergo the strongest ranged damage potential among bow users. Crossbows only saw a loss of athletics, IIRC. The distinction, then, was made very clear: bow users are supposed to be weaker in melee because they have more potential at range. Nords, being the weakest bow users at range, get melee capability in line with crossbow users. Crossbow users are still worse than infantry & cav in melee, but are not given trash stats (their gear sucks though, but I feel this was an oversight more than anything).
To say that the test is conducted in such a way to deliberately make archers look weak is disingenuous, as both classes are tested in their best possible armor. Armor was used for the sake of consistency in testing. Otherwise, infantry would cause too much significant overkill damage which would unduly influence the accuracy of the comparison being made. The point is not that archers must take 15+ swings to kill an infantryman, the point is that an infantryman can take from one half to one fifth as many swings to achieve the same effect. What matters is not the exact numbers, but the ratio of them. Infantry can easily score one-shot kills with melee headshots & appropriate movement against all but the best helmets, but archers & crossbowmen need the planets to align to get a one-shot melee kill against any helmet. Infantry with high raw damage weapons can kill with a single body hit against an unarmored target as well, with a little movement. Archers can never achieve that on foot. Sure, this is arguably a good thing, but the problem is that the magnitude of the difference is too severe. What an infantryman can do in one swing an archer will often require four or more swings to do (remember that blunt weapons have low raw damage & their armor penetrating advantage is wasted against light- or un-armored targets). Furthermore, it is important to consider how little the damage type mechanic affects infantry relative to archers. For archers, the benefit is magnified because without it they deal mostly glancing blows. For infantry, it took 7 swings to kill with a mace and 7 swings to kill with two types of swords. I'll explain this in a later point.
I did, and pretty much all native players do. If we're not rooting this discussion in native then we're both wasting our time. The most common starting gold is 1000 in Native, but you actually don't directly lose money when you die. Your money only goes down after you respawn, as you are buying gear to respawn with. Money is won from kills (which award a flat rate + a percentage of your opponent's gear cost) and for winning the round (flat rate). One player on the winning team that scores a couple of kills against opponents who used most of their starting money can have top-tier weapons and mid-tier armor in the second round on Native (depending on faction, 'cause Rhodoks still don't have mid-tier armor options
). If this same player scores a couple of kills and wins the second round, then they may be in all but the absolute best armor going into the third round. The cost difference between the best and second-best armor for most factions is severe, and while the stat difference also looks large we must take into consideration that armor increases offer diminishing returns after a certain point, dependent on your opponent's melee potential.Referring back 2 paragraphs, where infantry required the same number of swings to kill with blunt weapons as with some cutting weapons, this is attributable to the way damage is calculated. For the infantryman, we can see that the greater raw damage value on the swords is enough to make up for the lack of armor penetrating capability because of their power strike & proficiency, and while the mace has lower raw damage it ignores enough armor to be just as viable damage-wise as the cutting weapons. For archers we could expect the same trend to hold true, except their low power-strike reduces their melee potential to the point where many of their swings are totally ineffective glancing blows. The interesting thing to note here is that--because it ignores a hefty percentage of armor--the number of glances with the mace was much lower, meaning it landed damaging strikes more consistently. It is easy to see why infantry seldom glance while archers glance quite often, even with the same weapons. Infantry get a significantly larger boost to pre-reduction damage through their power strike and proficiency. Barring a negative speed bonus, it is unlikely for the infantryman to deal so little damage that they cannot overcome the modified armor value, ergo they consistently deal damage with each blow. For archers, their power strike bonus is smaller or zero, so their raw damage before speed bonus is closer to the raw damage listed on the weapon. With a cutting weapon, this means that armor with an armor value just a little (~10 points) above the raw damage of the weapon has a good chance to mitigate all incoming damage from an archer's melee attack. The only way to overcome this is with good speed bonuses, luck, or a blunt weapon, because armor value is also randomized between 50% and 100% of the armor's displayed value for each hit. Maces can reduce that significantly, but cutting weapons won't. It's worth pointing out that only Vaegir archers and Rhodok crossbowmen get access to blunt weapons, and they also get the only piercing weapons (though the Vaegir piercing weapon is only 19p with 70 reach, arguably the worst weapon in the game).
Now, when we take into consideration the more readily available armor upgrades for infantry and the worse weapon availability to most archers & crossbowmen, as well as the worse melee stats for ranged classes, it becomes apparent that they do not remain competitive in melee against infantry beyond the first or second round of a map, especially if they lose. Snowballing is another problem in Warband which Bannerlord has already taken steps to address through mostly fixed class loadouts, but the downside to this is that a player can select a heavy infantry class without earning it through skillful play and--in circumstances like Warband's--be more-or-less impervious to archers in melee.
4:
I can't prove it any more than you can, as I don't have access to Bannerlord. A more reasonable demand you could make of me in this regard is to offer examples from the information we do have, and to provide a well-reasoned explanation of them. I've already done this by calculating the approximate damage difference between bows and melee weapons (about 30-50% less damage per arrow compared to melee swings), using examples of visible damage numbers which appear to be unmodified to estimate the damage that would be dealt against the archer in question, and by using the calculated minimum health of heavy infantry (9
as a point to estimate the health total of the archer in question (~90). With this information, I would estimate that the archer in question would take 3 or 4 arrows to kill. Beyond that, I can only assume that damage of javelins relative to arrows is in line with Warband's, so it would likely take 2 javelins to kill the archer.5: The link you provided only proves my point further. Here's the example in question, with relevant part bolded:
Which takes me to number 6.OurGloriousLeader said:
6:
I can't speak for everyone, and it's not something that was formally agreed upon anywhere. This is an unrealistic standard to hold me to, and tacitly acknowledged as such by the very existence of statistical sampling. It is unreasonable to expect anyone to query or test an entire population if that population is not small.
As for which is more important, I feel some qualifying statements should be made before I give you my opinion on that. First, more important for what purpose? Second, to what degree? If the purpose is for making balancing decisions, then yes, absolutely, the competitive community's opinions are not only more important, they are most important. This is because very few people outside of the competitive community will feel as affected by minor, seemingly trivial differences in stats, or have as much experience playing the game in a structured environment where balance is paramount to ensuring the validity & meaning of outcomes. Nobody has as much reason to care about balance as competitive players do, because their enjoyment of the game is affected by it to a much greater degree than someone who spends the majority of their time playing casual MP, SP, or mods. That being said, the degree of importance attributed to a competitive player vs. a casual player's opinion should not be so drastically different that the casual player's opinion is effectively discounted. We are, after all, playing the same game. It is also not necessary for someone to have played competitively before they could have any ideas which are beneficial to the game.
Therefore, it is my opinion that the opinions of competitive players with regards to balance should be weighted more than those of others, but ideas from all parties should be considered so that good ideas do not go unnoticed. That's why I'm here, discussing this with you, even though I think you're not a competitive player.
Now that's an idea. Especially if multiplayer modes scale up to the point where there are two or three hundred characters running around in a battle (mostly bots, I would assume), it would be a considerable quality of life improvement to give players more throwing weapons in such a mode than they would get in a 6vs6 competitive match, and the effect on balance is greatly diminished considering the scale of the battle. I feel this could also easily be done with the perk system that Bannerlord will have, as perk options could be made to depend on the game mode. The "well supplied" perk could offer 2 extra javelins to a player in a 6vs6 mode, but in captains mode could boost the ammo of the player by 100% and their units by 50%, or something along those lines.
I'd say it's not that they get them for free, but that anyone who picks up just one and survives the round will get a full stack at the start of the next round. This lets one cav player throw their free javelins into the ground for infantry to pick up, turning one stack of free javelins into potentially six in the second round (cav respawns with a free full stack, and up to five infantry could grab a single javelin each in the prior round). Even if the horseman had to pay the standard price of ~300 for them, he still has the potential to generate five free stacks in the following round. Persistence of gear drops is stupid in general, and throws a very large, very damaging wrench into the balancing problem.
The problem with warband and its balance was not exclusively on weapons and armor parts. When you have a directional attacking/blocking game you have to make sure there are the correct systems to avoid crazy **** that happen and look otherwordly. While I agree that weapons and armor are number priority for balancing considering they have mathematic values and are the baseline while some modifiers like speed x damage take place, I do think there are other factors. On how you actually use them and what the game allows. Warband pretty much punishes anyone who play in low sensitivity because there are no camera deadzones. You can watch how competitive players play and understand this if you check videos on youtube, NOT by spectator POV, but actual gameplay POV. The camera plays are extremely shaky, to cause animation confusion. The infamous hilt hit is based on this, hitting someone from left to right really from the startup and then make a sudden movement to the right. Many people wonder how its possible for someone to hit so fast, in a row and that is how they do it. It needs technique and practice for the startup. The glitchy feints are also based on moving the camera on a very confusing pattern to cause the enemy's brain to think that you either attack NOW or make him expect a different swing. The problem was the fights do not really look fights in a pro level. You just see people moving like spastics to surpass an enemy's defences. I think to make the game more balanced, there should be some deadzones after you release the swing, how far you are allowed to drag it. The same problem existed in chivalry, but the drags were more advanced. In chivalry you used to attack and then drag the swing the opposite way since it had no blocking system but a parry system (aka, you hit block and it blocks for about 1 second). Of course, chivalry died and dragging was a reason many people were put off, but the combat was much more advanced. If you want to truly understand how this is broken in Warband, you can check it out with weapons like pikes and spears. Or in a mod like Mercenaries. Awlpikes are just broken due to speed, and how you can make them play to outrange someone. I also disagree with the new bow reticle in Bannerlord. They are making archers to have an extremely easy time. The reticle should not show as much accuracy as it shows. I also do not like how armor weight affects your swing speed so drastically, but that's me.
Orion said:1: Unless you treat throwing like your one job that you get paid immense amounts of money for (e.g. you're a major league baseball pitcher) then your accuracy is not going to be that high. Then again, the way accuracy seems to work in Warband is that it's actually a theoretical max which--if you have high enough proficiency--you can achieve. Realistically, unless you greatly exceed the minimum requirements for a ranged weapon then you won't ever achieve that 99 accuracy. This is demonstrated in Warband through controlled tests like I performed with archers, where their differences in proficiencies/power draw are readily apparent. If accuracy functions in a similar way in Bannerlord, then I wouldn't be opposed to throwing weapons having higher maximum accuracy potential. I would not want them to be significantly more accurate in multiplayer than they are in Warband, though, which could be achieved by tweaking throwing skill on MP classes.
2: When I get a chance I'll update this line with an image to show my idea of long & medium range.
3:
That's neat, but crossbows were given better melee capability because they have a long reload time which they are immobile for (ergo, they're more likely to get caught in melee because they are less mobile while firing & reloading). This notion is also borne out by giving them direct access to shields. aWhat you consider to be the same is irrelevant, because the distinction was clearly made already. This distinction was also purposefully made, as originally Vaegir & Sarranid archers were more capable in melee with higher power strike & athletics, as well as better weapon options (notably, Vaegirs had scimitars). Nords got higher power strike because they have the worst bow selection, exclusively cutting melee weapons (though they're among the best), and for thematic reasons. Some archers were deliberately nerfed harder than others, with Vaegirs seeing the biggest hit through more expensive armor, loss of quality melee weapons, and loss of athletics & power strike. This is because Vaegirs have the best bow options, ergo the strongest ranged damage potential among bow users. Crossbows only saw a loss of athletics, IIRC. The distinction, then, was made very clear: bow users are supposed to be weaker in melee because they have more potential at range. Nords, being the weakest bow users at range, get melee capability in line with crossbow users. Crossbow users are still worse than infantry & cav in melee, but are not given trash stats (their gear sucks though, but I feel this was an oversight more than anything).
b To say that the test is conducted in such a way to deliberately make archers look weak is disingenuous, as both classes are tested in their best possible armor. Armor was used for the sake of consistency in testing. Otherwise, infantry would cause too much significant overkill damage which would unduly influence the accuracy of the comparison being made. The point is not that archers must take 15+ swings to kill an infantryman, the point is that an infantryman can take from one half to one fifth as many swings to achieve the same effect. What matters is not the exact numbers, but the ratio of them. Infantry can easily score one-shot kills with melee headshots & appropriate movement against all but the best helmets, but archers & crossbowmen need the planets to align to get a one-shot melee kill against any helmet. Infantry with high raw damage weapons can kill with a single body hit against an unarmored target as well, with a little movement. Archers can never achieve that on foot. Sure, this is arguably a good thing, but the problem is that the magnitude of the difference is too severe. What an infantryman can do in one swing an archer will often require four or more swings to do (remember that blunt weapons have low raw damage & their armor penetrating advantage is wasted against light- or un-armored targets). Furthermore, it is important to consider how little the damage type mechanic affects infantry relative to archers. For archers, the benefit is magnified because without it they deal mostly glancing blows. For infantry, it took 7 swings to kill with a mace and 7 swings to kill with two types of swords. I'll explain this in a later point.
c I did, and pretty much all native players do. If we're not rooting this discussion in native then we're both wasting our time. The most common starting gold is 1000 in Native, but you actually don't directly lose money when you die. Your money only goes down after you respawn, as you are buying gear to respawn with. Money is won from kills (which award a flat rate + a percentage of your opponent's gear cost) and for winning the round (flat rate). One player on the winning team that scores a couple of kills against opponents who used most of their starting money can have top-tier weapons and mid-tier armor in the second round on Native (depending on faction, 'cause Rhodoks still don't have mid-tier armor options
Referring back 2 paragraphs, where infantry required the same number of swings to kill with blunt weapons as with some cutting weapons, this is attributable to the way damage is calculated. For the infantryman, we can see that the greater raw damage value on the swords is enough to make up for the lack of armor penetrating capability because of their power strike & proficiency, and while the mace has lower raw damage it ignores enough armor to be just as viable damage-wise as the cutting weapons. For archers we could expect the same trend to hold true, except their low power-strike reduces their melee potential to the point where many of their swings are totally ineffective glancing blows. The interesting thing to note here is that--because it ignores a hefty percentage of armor--the number of glances with the mace was much lower, meaning it landed damaging strikes more consistently. It is easy to see why infantry seldom glance while archers glance quite often, even with the same weapons. Infantry get a significantly larger boost to pre-reduction damage through their power strike and proficiency. Barring a negative speed bonus, it is unlikely for the infantryman to deal so little damage that they cannot overcome the modified armor value, ergo they consistently deal damage with each blow. For archers, their power strike bonus is smaller or zero, so their raw damage before speed bonus is closer to the raw damage listed on the weapon. With a cutting weapon, this means that armor with an armor value just a little (~10 points) above the raw damage of the weapon has a good chance to mitigate all incoming damage from an archer's melee attack. The only way to overcome this is with good speed bonuses, luck, or a blunt weapon, because armor value is also randomized between 50% and 100% of the armor's displayed value for each hit. Maces can reduce that significantly, but cutting weapons won't. It's worth pointing out that only Vaegir archers and Rhodok crossbowmen get access to blunt weapons, and they also get the only piercing weapons (though the Vaegir piercing weapon is only 19p with 70 reach, arguably the worst weapon in the game).
dNow, when we take into consideration the more readily available armor upgrades for infantry and the worse weapon availability to most archers & crossbowmen, as well as the worse melee stats for ranged classes, it becomes apparent that they do not remain competitive in melee against infantry beyond the first or second round of a map, especially if they lose. Snowballing is another problem in Warband which Bannerlord has already taken steps to address through mostly fixed class loadouts, but the downside to this is that a player can select a heavy infantry class without earning it through skillful play and--in circumstances like Warband's--be more-or-less impervious to archers in melee.
4:
I can't prove it any more than you can, as I don't have access to Bannerlord. A more reasonable demand you could make of me in this regard is to offer examples from the information we do have, and to provide a well-reasoned explanation of them. I've already done this by calculating the approximate damage difference between bows and melee weapons (about 30-50% less damage per arrow compared to melee swings), using examples of visible damage numbers which appear to be unmodified to estimate the damage that would be dealt against the archer in question, and by using the calculated minimum health of heavy infantry (9
5: The link you provided only proves my point further. Here's the example in question, with relevant part bolded:
Which takes me to number 6.OurGloriousLeader said:
6:aI can't speak for everyone, and it's not something that was formally agreed upon anywhere. This is an unrealistic standard to hold me to, and tacitly acknowledged as such by the very existence of statistical sampling. It is unreasonable to expect anyone to query or test an entire population if that population is not small.
As for which is more important, I feel some qualifying statements should be made before I give you my opinion on that. First, more important for what purpose? Second, to what degree? If the purpose is for making balancing decisions, then yes, absolutely, the competitive community's opinions are not only more important, they are most important. This is because very few people outside of the competitive community will feel as affected by minor, seemingly trivial differences in stats, or have as much experience playing the game in a structured environment where balance is paramount to ensuring the validity & meaning of outcomes. Nobody has as much reason to care about balance as competitive players do, because their enjoyment of the game is affected by it to a much greater degree than someone who spends the majority of their time playing casual MP, SP, or mods. That being said, the degree of importance attributed to a competitive player vs. a casual player's opinion should not be so drastically different that the casual player's opinion is effectively discounted. We are, after all, playing the same game. It is also not necessary for someone to have played competitively before they could have any ideas which are beneficial to the game.
Therefore, it is my opinion that the opinions of competitive players with regards to balance should be weighted more than those of others, but ideas from all parties should be considered so that good ideas do not go unnoticed. That's why I'm here, discussing this with you, even though I think you're not a competitive player.
Now that's an idea. Especially if multiplayer modes scale up to the point where there are two or three hundred characters running around in a battle (mostly bots, I would assume), it would be a considerable quality of life improvement to give players more throwing weapons in such a mode than they would get in a 6vs6 competitive match, b and the effect on balance is greatly diminished considering the scale of the battle. I feel this could also easily be done with the perk system that Bannerlord will have, as perk options could be made to depend on the game mode. The "well supplied" perk could offer 2 extra javelins to a player in a 6vs6 mode, but in captains mode could boost the ammo of the player by 100% and their units by 50%, or something along those lines.
cI'd say it's not that they get them for free, but that anyone who picks up just one and survives the round will get a full stack at the start of the next round. This lets one cav player throw their free javelins into the ground for infantry to pick up, turning one stack of free javelins into potentially six in the second round (cav respawns with a free full stack, and up to five infantry could grab a single javelin each in the prior round). Even if the horseman had to pay the standard price of ~300 for them, he still has the potential to generate five free stacks in the following round. Persistence of gear drops is stupid in general, and throws a very large, very damaging wrench into the balancing problem.
1
The "Then I want javelins with 99 accuracy so it is not a dice roll...." was sarcastic, I am not asking for perfect or almost perfect accuracy for javelins. But what you say to justify low accuracy for javelins can be said to justify the lower aim for bows too. In fact you are appealing to realism and if we consider realism that could lead to massive bow nerf.
3
a
It is relevant to clarify the meaning of my previous comment.
b
I agree that the ratio is important. But by using the heaviest armor you are not only avoiding the chance of overkill for infantry, you are obtaining only the worst ratio for archers. Because the ratio is very dependent on the armor used. Using a rare armor set up to make a general statement is not the best option.
c
(Not default settings =/= Not native)
The point is that, unless you use a huge initial gold, heavy armor is not common.
I guess your example is about 8 vs 8 competitive. It would be good to know how common is your example to happen. I have seen some result screenshots of the BCM and certainly in some of them there are players that had the chance to use heavy armor, but that was in uneven games where a team was much better than the other or in teams where the top ranking players got much better results than the rest of the team. In more balanced games no one got the chance to use heavy armor.
Even with it being possible, you are relying too much on the winning round flat rate of gold.
If I am not wrong, in your example it is: 1000 initial + 2 * 200 from kills in first round + 1000 winning first round + 2 * 200 from kills in second round + 1000 winning second round = 3800 gold
2000 out of 3800 is from winning rounds.
In other game modes like siege this winning round gold is meaningless because you can die and respawn several times during each round.
d
If they were equal or very close in melee skills to infantry then they would be extremely overpowered. They would not only kill from the safety of distance, they would have high chances to kill the infantry that managed to get close to engage in melee.
I would agree with increasing the melee skills of archers as long as their ranged damage is accordingly decreased. Also, in my opinion, damage dealt should be proportional to the risk taken. In the videos of Bannerlord infantry engaging in melee can deal a lot of damage but they are exposed to be hit by the enemy too. That doesn't happen with ranged units when they use their bows/crossbows. Moreover I linked a video in my previous comment where you can see that archers deal huge amounts of damage against heavy armored infantry in melee combat.
https://youtu.be/ldYi2ITaFDg?t=790
And here infantry against heavy infantry to compare (notice that the player being killed in this video don't have an armor as heavy as the other one because this is battanian axemen instead of imperial legionnaire, same health but 35 armor instead of 40)
https://youtu.be/JaMZlbRE3d8?t=5m4s
4
I asked Callum about the modifiers but he said that he can't give the exact numbers. He just confirmed that they use damage reduction to players in that kind of demos because a lot of people that play them don't have experience playing M&B.
I can't prove that the modifiers I said are the correct ones, but considering that previous M&B games have only damage reduction as difficulty settings it makes more sense than having 2X damage from player to AI.
I already provided the heavy infantry health at the end of this comment:
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,378245.msg9023316.html#msg9023316
If you consider that the damage of javelins relative to arrows is in line with Warband's, then it would be two arrows. Unless you are using the weakest bow, and even then I think it wouldn't take more than three arrows, being the third overkill if needed at all.
5
That is only if you decide to ignore the rest of the comment.
OurGloriousLeader said:
The difference between the blue and bolded is exactly the reason I said that different balance should be done in each multiplayer mode.
6
a
The first question is meant to ask if it was something that involved a big enough group of competitive players or you are talking about a consensus made among a small group of friends.
About which opinion is more important. I would say that certainly the competitive players' opinions are the most important to discuss about balance in competitive mode. But the other modes require different balance because the different number of players and other different circumstances can turn what is balanced in competitive into something very imbalanced.
I confirm that I am not a competitive player by the way.
b
As I said in the previous point, it is not that the effect on balance is greatly diminished considering the scale of the battle; the scale of battle, as any other different circumstance, just changes what is balanced.
c
With that trick they can potentially turn the free stack into an unlimited number because an infantryman that picked up a javelin can throw it into the ground too for other infantry. That way all the players in the team could respawn with javelins if they don't die. But that doesn't change the fact that this is not a problem with javelins being overpowered themselves. To solve it, it is only needed to remove throwing weapons from the persistence of gear drops. Or remove the persistence completely.
Not really. The whole purpose of bows is to be able to fire a projectile further & more accurately than it could be thrown. If we wanted to appeal to realism, then bows would likely see a massive buff because any effective shot could incapacitate a soldier, even if he didn't die outright.Bladerider said:
You're right that the ratio does vary depending on the armor used, and at the lower end of the armor spectrum the results are much closer together (1 or 2 swings for infantry vs. 2 or 3 for archers), i.e. the ratio of infantry:archer swings to kill is lower, but the ratio only grows as armor values increase. There's also not much qualitative difference between the absolute best armor and the second best when you're an archer, because both have high enough armor values to ensure that a large portion of your swings with common weapons will be ineffective. Nord infantry get the mail hauberk as their second best armor option, at the affordable cost of ~1300 gold, and it offers 40 body armor. If you want a laugh, look at the Swadian armor options. The haubergeon is ~860 gold so it can be bought in the first round, and it has 41 body armor. Both of these armor values are high enough that an archer swinging against them will bounce off a significant number of times, and if they don't bounce off then they will deal small amounts of damage.
Sarranid & Vaegir Archers (0 power strike) vs. Swadian Infantry wearing Haubergeon (41 armor)
Sarranid & Vaegir Infantry (4 power strike) vs. Swadian Infantry wearing Haubergeon
Rhodok Crossbowman (2 power strike) vs. Swadian Infantry wearing Haubergeon
Rhodok Infantry (4 power strike) vs. Swadian Infantry wearing Haubergeon
Note: Rhodok Crossbowman's 27c sword is roughly equivalent to the Sarranid Sword which has 26c. This particular sword+class combination was tested to show the difference that just 2 power strike can make (from avg. 21 hits to 10, which is still 25% more than the infantry average for the similar weapon).
| Weapon | Hits to Kill | Average | ||||
Sar. Sword |
| 21 | ||||
Scimitar |
| 12 | ||||
Spi. Club |
| 30.5 | ||||
Knob. Mace |
| 13 |
Sarranid & Vaegir Infantry (4 power strike) vs. Swadian Infantry wearing Haubergeon
| Weapon | Hits to Kill | Average | ||||
Sar. Sword |
| 8 | ||||
Scimitar |
| 4.25 | ||||
Spi. Club |
| 9.75 | ||||
Knob. Mace |
| 6.25 |
Rhodok Crossbowman (2 power strike) vs. Swadian Infantry wearing Haubergeon
| Weapon | Hits to Kill | Average | ||||
27c Sword |
| 10 | ||||
Fight. Pick |
| 9 | ||||
Mil. Pick |
| 4.5 | ||||
Spiked Staff |
| 8 | ||||
2H Sp. Staff |
| 6 |
Rhodok Infantry (4 power strike) vs. Swadian Infantry wearing Haubergeon
| Weapon | Hits to Kill | Average | ||||
Fight. Pick |
| 6 | ||||
Mil. Pick |
| 3.5 | ||||
Spiked Staff |
| 7 | ||||
2H Sp. Staff |
| 5 |
Note: Rhodok Crossbowman's 27c sword is roughly equivalent to the Sarranid Sword which has 26c. This particular sword+class combination was tested to show the difference that just 2 power strike can make (from avg. 21 hits to 10, which is still 25% more than the infantry average for the similar weapon).
Let's keep the goalposts where they are, please. It doesn't matter if only 2 players on a team of 8 got heavy armor, because that's still a significant proportion of the team (25%), and one must also bear in mind that not all of the players are infantry and thus will either have no access to the heaviest armor at all (archers) or will have too many additional expenses (cavalry). I haven't run the numbers, but the typical composition on closed maps seemed to be 5 infantry + 2 archers + 1 cavalry. Even if only 2 of those 5 infantry players got heavy armor, that's still 40% of all the infantry on the team. Compared to your previous statement of only "a few" players out of an estimated 120 having heavy armor, we seem to be talking about totally different experiences here.
The default round win bonus is not 1000 gold, it's 500. The flat rate for kills is not 200, it's 100. Starting gold is standard 1000 in competitive Native. With these numbers and the evidence from tournaments mentioned previously, you should see that vast amounts of gold are not necessary. The gold earned for "winning a round" is deceptive as it's actually awarded to all players, regardless of whether they win or survive. The kill bonus on default settings is 100 + (0.08 * equipment value of the slain player), with no cap. The value of your equipment is effectively refunded when you replace it, so upgrading from armor that costs 500 to armor that costs 1000 only requires you to have 500 gold on hand. You are also refunded 32% of your equipment's value when you die.
Please bear in mind, the wiki is not always accurate.
You are aware that archers can and will shoot at other archers, right? Archers and crossbowmen also cannot engage with their ranged weapons with a shield in hand. Infantry can engage with a shield in hand at all times, which gives passive protection against projectiles as well as active protection against projectiles & melee. You cannot sit there and tell me in earnest that archers at range are not exposed. You must expose yourself as an archer in order to attack, and with worse armor options & lower health you're that much more likely to die from ranged attacks.
No way. Javelins deal a ton of damage compared to arrows, and while the archer in that image survived one javelin it's unlikely he had much health left. I don't think you have a good understanding of how powerful javelins are in Warband, or how much damage arrows actually deal.
You won't catch me advocating in favor of gear drops & persistence. I'm glad it was removed specifically for bolts to discourage infantry/cavalry from running around with crossbows.
Similar threads
