When you rebalance leveling speed, use Riding/Bow as your benchmark, not Athletics.

[Apocal]

Character System

• Skill Progression & Effects Balancing

Cool.

But please don't look at Riding as being too fast. Riding+Bow is about where things are fun. Stewardship and Scouting are also very reasonable in terms of skill acquisition. I do the thing they say to do and they level up, right quick. Great.

However everything else is varying degrees of slow or annoying to grind. Athletics, all Vigor skills, Charm and Tactics. You should be able to hit 100 in a skill before your first year (84 days). Seven different skills each with 100 in them will not break anything in the game (currently). So please let us have this one. Making it take longer doesn't actually make the game any more fun. It possibly makes it a lot less fun because you feel compelled to use certain methods to become skilled at a reasonable rate, rather than having a fully free choice in the matter.

Some skills are especially heinous: this includes Leadership via high morale, Medicine unless you're getting party-wiped on a weekly basis, Engineering and Roguery too. They level up way too slowly or are situational, without a consistent opportunities to develop them in certain portions of the game. I can't imagine building a playthrough around any of these skills (except Leadership as a dedicated vassal).

Please keep in mind that most players think the leveling experience is too slow. Make everything as good as Riding -- don't make Riding just as miserable as most of the other skills.

 

[Shun]

I agree on your point. With reagards to charm, however, I have a different experience. In my last playtrough, I released every lord after I won the battle and felt charm was increasing quite fast.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

I wholeheartedly agree. The game's so much more fun with a brisk leveling pace.

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

Agreed, although I feel that Leadership level uls fine though when leading armies. Almost 500 days and because I'm leveling crossbows (and as side effect athletics) I barely reached level 15.

 

[black_bulldog]

Agreed, although I feel that Leadership level uls fine though when leading armies. Almost 500 days and because I'm leveling crossbows (and as side effect athletics) I barely reached level 15.

Yeah it's fine, but needs to be able to level up at some kind of a reasonable rate without leading an army.

 

[Earth Dragon]

I agree it could have a better curve, but disagree with the assessment that “100 by your first year” is where the marker should be. Some skills aren’t gonna really get put to task until after that (Engineering being the major one). And there are really too many variables to what the players may be doing. Example: are you riding or walking around the map?

I think it is also fair to point out that Riding/Bow can use a down crank while everything else gets an uptick. Flock shooting arrows into a mass of troops shouldn’t be getting you tons of XP, while galloping full speed and swing a mace and cracking the back of someone could give more.

Things that could give some/more XP:

First time doing all the training camp activities (Associated weapons/movement similar to arena but only for the first run)
Striking Mounts (don’t think it gives any but could give reduced similar to arena reduction)
Defending an Attack (athletics)
Hiring XP based on tier, not just a flat 1 * multiple (Leadership)
Upgrading Troops (Leadership, Troops main Skill)
Rescuing Troops (Leadership? Charm or Roguery)
Capturing Troops (Tactics)
Hiring Prisoners (Leadership/Roguery)
Daily XP for all sources of income (Trade for Shops, Steward for Villages)
Taking/Healing damage....I honestly don’t know how this one works, but it could be better (Medicine)
Getting a success pip on a mission during a conversation (Charm)
Creating a Weapon part for the first time (Blacksmithing)
Aiding someone in battle (Charm: Reputation given at the start, so there is a gain even if you lose)
Troop defeats the type of they counter (Tactics; maybe unrealistic)


Additional things that can be added:

Small “non-mission” favors can be done for notables (Charm)
“Wait” stance where you and your companions get XP based on what the stance is. This would be nominal and not a preferable means to gain XP but something while waiting for a companion to return from a mission completion or to lick your wounds
Artisan - Trade and Blacksmithing
Assistance - Medicine and Engineering
Mingle - Steward and Charm
Military Study - Tactics and Lead
Recon Study - Scout and Roguery
Training - Based on equipment
Troops:
R&R - Improve Morale
Train - XP
Security - Increase reputation with notables
Petty Crime - Get nominal cash, decrease reputation with notables

Training Exercises with your troops in general

 

[Apocal]

Agreed, although I feel that Leadership level uls fine though when leading armies. Almost 500 days and because I'm leveling crossbows (and as side effect athletics) I barely reached level 15.

Yeah, it is only through high morale that leveling Leadership sucks. Going on five years as a small party (under 40 members) and it has gone from 20 to 27. That's atrocious.

I agree it could have a better curve, but disagree with the assessment that “100 by your first year” is where the marker should be. Some skills aren’t gonna really get put to task until after that (Engineering being the major one). And there are really too many variables to what the players may be doing. Example: are you riding or walking around the map?

Yeah, Engineering is an exception there. Leadership too, perhaps. Other than those (and maybe one other, like Medicine), I should perhaps qualify that by saying it should be 100 in a year if you choose to concentrate on that skill. Obviously allowing for skills to increase meaningfully outside of that.

 

[TheWigglyTapeworm]

Yeah, leveling stuff is too slow right now. I have a 2400 day game and I still haven't gotten 200 with any skill apart from trading because I grinded it out. 2nd highest is 177 on 1-handed.
IMO, by the time the player get 200+ on different skills they are probably going to die soon. And the grind with their heir will start again.
Companions also level too slowly making some of the higher perks, especially for governing unobtainable.

 

[Earth Dragon]

Yeah, leveling stuff is too slow right now. I have a 2400 day game and I still haven't gotten 200 with any skill apart from trading because I grinded it out. 2nd highest is 177 on 1-handed.
IMO, by the time the player get 200+ on different skills they are probably going to die soon. And the grind with their heir will start again.
Companions also level too slowly making some of the higher perks, especially for governing unobtainable.

This is actually why I haven’t gripped too much though. If you initial character isn’t meant to be able to get to those massive high totals, and instead the heirs are designed to get way up there, then I’m okay with that.

It probably needs a tweak regardless, but I would find this this acceptable if heirs had that advantage.

The other thing I forgot to mention earlier is a simple shift to the base numbers could actually really help the level up process. If “1”s in a stat were where “2”s are now, that would give players an additional 120 skill point cap at the start, with all the associated multiples. This alone could possibly do the trick.

 

[Ganeic]

Well exploit your family for free army leadership rank ups. costs you a bit of extra gold but 0 influence to take a family member along on your adventures, an easy way to about double your force early and hammer off other lords if you wish. Especailly useful during ongoing wars when you can smash weak lords that respawns for extra rep and charm.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

But please don't look at Riding as being too fast. Riding+Bow is about where things are fun. Stewardship and Scouting are also very reasonable in terms of skill acquisition. I do the thing they say to do and they level up, right quick. Great.

Couldn't agree more, please TW even if the riding skill formula is a goof, try to put that goof into other skills so they can level up nicely too.
I would also heartily ask for TW to consider abandoning the "global skill learning speed reduction per level up" as this is really hampering in creative and/or organic character building as well as min/max planned characters. It just ****s it all up. It's especially bad since the "raw exp" for MC levels is unaffected by skill being capped. This means if I fight with a Bow on horse back, I keep leveling up even if my wish is to learn a slower none-combat skill and I put little FP into riding and Bow, this then slows the learning rate and I can never get the skills I wanted in a reasonable time.

Well exploit your family for free army leadership rank ups

You can't do that if you're a independent clan. We shouldn't have to be a vassal or ruler to raise a skill efficiently via armies, it's bad design choice and degrades the "sand box" play your way style of game M&B is supposed to be..

 

[Ganeic]

You can still get it through things like auto battle. But slower yeah.

But yeah with character death implemented through time/age its necessary to buff leveling speed as currently it was to slow.

 

[Darkath]

Couldn't agree more, please TW even if the riding skill formula is a goof, try to put that goof into other skills so they can level up nicely too.
I would also heartily ask for TW to consider abandoning the "global skill learning speed reduction per level up" as this is really hampering in creative and/or organic character building as well as min/max planned characters. It just ****s it all up. It's especially bad since the "raw exp" for MC levels is unaffected by skill being capped. This means if I fight with a Bow on horse back, I keep leveling up even if my wish is to learn a slower none-combat skill and I put little FP into riding and Bow, this then slows the learning rate and I can never get the skills I wanted in a reasonable time.


You can't do that if you're a independent clan. We shouldn't have to be a vassal or ruler to raise a skill efficiently via armies, it's bad design choice and degrades the "sand box" play your way style of game M&B is supposed to be..

What they could do however is quicken/slow the skill aquisition per age instead of level, as a young human is like a sponge soaking everything taught to him, while an old human is stubborn as a rock.
You could then chose in character creation to play a green rookie fresh off the barn with basically 0 skills or a grizzled mercenary already having a fair amount of points to invest at game start but who will hardly learn anything new until his death.

Right now you start as a 30 something old man knowing next to zero things about his life in calradia, soon becoming slow at picking up new skills, while your little brother is basically a genius renaissance man knowing everything from the blade to relationships and leadership. It's sad for the player.

 

[Baerstein]

Oh yes please, Horse XP should be fine. I Mean, i took my pony out in the beginning and walk on my bare feet for a long time. Rescue some people, fight armys, destroy cities and reach many years later around almost eventually soon 125 athletics.
and than, i decided to level up raiding and attack a city, sit there on my Pony (i keep it!), still standing in front of the wall.
Long story short, i make in this one fight over 50 levels with raiding. standing still, doing nothing with my WASD keys. NOTHING, just riding to that one spot and start shooting the militia from the wall. nothing else. from 10 to ~60. in one siege.
I´m almost done with this game.

 

[XDaron]

adding some books could help a bit, especially with medicine and engineering

 

[Apocal]

Sending this bad boy back to the top, now that @Dejan is here.

Please don't be scared to make some skills that have very few opportunities for leveling just plain level up much faster than day-to-day skills. I'm thinking Engineering explicitly, because having someone get 300 Engineering from fifty sieges won't actually break anything at all, especially if you do it on a player character.

Also, the education stat gains are pretty irrelevant, considering how fast you gain those initial levels and how small to the totals are, even if you stack them up. At most you can get like +60 (in my experience and testing, I might be wrong) to start with in a skill, when eighteen year old nobles at game start have hundreds across the board.
?

Please increase the stage-by-stage gains by an order of magnitude: fifty points instead of five.

 

[8uzzard]

Cool.

But please don't look at Riding as being too fast. Riding+Bow is about where things are fun. Stewardship and Scouting are also very reasonable in terms of skill acquisition. I do the thing they say to do and they level up, right quick. Great.

However everything else is varying degrees of slow or annoying to grind. Athletics, all Vigor skills, Charm and Tactics. You should be able to hit 100 in a skill before your first year (84 days). Seven different skills each with 100 in them will not break anything in the game (currently). So please let us have this one. Making it take longer doesn't actually make the game any more fun. It possibly makes it a lot less fun because you feel compelled to use certain methods to become skilled at a reasonable rate, rather than having a fully free choice in the matter.

Some skills are especially heinous: this includes Leadership via high morale, Medicine unless you're getting party-wiped on a weekly basis, Engineering and Roguery too. They level up way too slowly or are situational, without a consistent opportunities to develop them in certain portions of the game. I can't imagine building a playthrough around any of these skills (except Leadership as a dedicated vassal).

Please keep in mind that most players think the leveling experience is too slow. Make everything as good as Riding -- don't make Riding just as miserable as most of the other skills.

Good point, agree

 

[Monkey]

Though I refrain from posting "+1" because it doesn't add to the discussion, I decided to this time because of how much the extremely slow progression of so many skills annoy me. I'm with Apocal in that Riding and Bow skills progress at a really good speed (not too slow and not too fast). Some players (like me) would like to have enough time to become as skilled as people like Caladog and other high tier lords before dying of old age. I still haven't played to that point (dying of old age) but from what I'm seeing I assume it's not actually possible to get there through "normal" play in the unmodded game.

 

[Because]

Medicine is for me the prime candidate for tweaking as without exploits it is impossible to level up, especially if you are a player who actively tries to not get your own troops injured.

 

[Monkey]

Medicine is for me the prime candidate for tweaking as without exploits it is impossible to level up, especially if you are a player who actively tries to not get your own troops injured.

I'm glad Khuzait Horse Archer cheesers like us (who got used to steamrolling the map with no troop losses) aren't the people the game is balanced around. In my experience the leveling of Medicine is more or less alright (at least compared to others). Try simulating more (maybe all) of your battles (so you actually take losses just like the AI). There are other graver offenders.