Which leveling system do you prefer Warband or Bannerlord?

Which has the better leveling system?

  • Warband

  • Bannerlord


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I'd rather have some exp points to redistribute on skills as most of them are highly situational and thus a nightmare to level up. It is a grindfest
Did you see many engineers on the middle ages? Many doctors? No! Because it was hard to learn how to and it took years of study and practise in a world where you had almost no way to get neither.

It's just realism guys
 
Did you see many engineers on the middle ages? Many doctors? No! Because it was hard to learn how to and it took years of study and practise in a world where you had almost no way to get neither.

It's just realism guys
Do you know what years of study is usually associated with? Being boring ^^... Games like this ought to have an engaging way to level up all skills.
 
It never felt like a chore to me, because everyone got experience doing the main thing that you want to be doing in a Mount and Blade game: fighting and killing stuff. The early game progression was so fast you level up in almost every battle and each level is a small jump in power that you can feel immediately. And all the companions are leveling up right with you. To me, that's such a fun part of the early game.

This new system just feels so slow. 100 days in and I'm still just level 10. Not one of my 4 companions has leveled even once. Even my main combat skills level so slowly, the ones I use less often don't progress at all. It just feels like a drag. And when you do actually gain a level, you don't really feel it. You only get an attribute every 3 levels. Focus points are kind of abstract since they only increase the rate of gain but you don't feel anything right away. Its all about the perks, but their effects seem pretty minor for the most part. It just doesn't feel as good at all.
This is not mount & blade: Total war, This is mount & blade bannerlord. It's a medieval "life" simulator. Yes, you can have lots of fighting and war, but you can also be a fraking blacksmith or a merchant. There is no focus on war exactly and this version of the game shows it. You have other ways of leveling up that is not by killing and making quests. Now you can level up without ever NEEDING to fight, how can this be bad? People are just crazy, I can't understand
 
I think aside from overall balancing (leveling skills should be faster generally, especially the supporting ones) the system could be saved by having a trainer system where you exchange gold for skill training. The training should take a bit of time like resting and have an initially low but exponentially growing cost. Learning by doing can stay as an ambient way of accumulating free skill growth. The learning caps could be adjusted accordingly to stop the player from mastering every skill easily without considerable money and time investment.

Gold can be earned in many ways so this would keep player freedom while making the player work towards skill growth.

Free training could also be a reward from quests (for the less money making types)

Also building companions to be the way you want would now be achieved just by sending them to a trainer.
 
Do you know what years of study is usually associated with? Being boring ^^... Games like this ought to have an engaging way to level up all skills.
Dude, just level other skills then. If you want to be an engineer, you have to do some engineering. Be a fighter then, you'll level up as fast as hell if you focus on that. The thing is, you have the option of leveling anything you want. Some are just harder than others, that's life for you
 
I like the system but they need to fix the bugs and rebalance the numbers. There are several skills that aren't gaining XP properly, which is making the whole thing grindier than it should be.
 
I think aside from overall balancing (leveling skills should be faster generally, especially the supporting ones) the system could be saved by having a trainer system where you exchange gold for skill training. The training should take a bit of time like resting and have an initially low but exponentially growing cost. Learning by doing can stay as an ambient way of accumulating free skill growth. The learning caps could be adjusted accordingly to stop the player from mastering every skill easily without considerable money and time investment.

Gold can be earned in many ways so this would keep player freedom while making the player work towards skill growth.

Free training could also be a reward from quests (for the less money making types)

Also building companions to be the way you want would now be achieved just by sending them to a trainer.

Just want to say I second this, I don't have anything to add, I just think it's a great idea.

I also highly agree with this:
This is not mount & blade: Total war, This is mount & blade bannerlord. It's a medieval "life" simulator. Yes, you can have lots of fighting and war, but you can also be a fraking blacksmith or a merchant. There is no focus on war exactly and this version of the game shows it. You have other ways of leveling up that is not by killing and making quests. Now you can level up without ever NEEDING to fight, how can this be bad? People are just crazy, I can't understand

I think people either don't fully understand how this system works, and/or are miss remembering Warband. In Warband you also gained skill by doing. And it went about as fast as in Bannerlord. The different is that it only worked with combat, and if you wanted to become a better merchant, for example, you would still need to fight for some reason. Now you don't have to. How is this bad? They only other major difference is that in Warband you could gain experience in the arena, which made the beginning of the game seem much faster than in Bannerlord.

Also, they are FOCUS points, because you're meant to FOCUS on something instead of being a master at everything. The more focus the faster you gain experience in something.

Having that said, the system could definitely do with some polishing and balancing.
 
Dude, just level other skills then. If you want to be an engineer, you have to do some engineering. Be a fighter then, you'll level up as fast as hell if you focus on that. The thing is, you have the option of leveling anything you want. Some are just harder than others, that's life for you
I'm sorry but I don't really buy that argument. I want to be a good leader, but leveling leadership is neigh impossible to do without a decent influence income.

If I want to focus on the smithing skillset because I value what it gives me, doesn't mean I enjoy the way and pace that smithing is leveled at.

To level charm for example... a skill I might interested in, it says I need to socialise with nobles... Okay, that involves clicking through the same 3-4 stock conservations like 500 times or what?

A lot of these skills are simply not enjoyable or viable to actually level up, despite the fact that I may well find their benefit useful and interesting

that's life for me, okay... but this is a game.
 
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Did you see many engineers on the middle ages? Many doctors? No! Because it was hard to learn how to and it took years of study and practise in a world where you had almost no way to get neither.

It's just realism guys

Exacly, one companion per hundreds of troops...

In all seriousness the previous system was way better. You get exp per battle and kills and distribute it anyway you want. Forcing player to play a certain way just to level their skills is a big no for me. A hybrid system combining the two could work perhaps.
 
Here's something I noticed with leveling companions. I sent a rogue companion on a herding mission, and he gained multiple points in Scouting while he was gone. Likewise, other quests give skill points to companions.

Tactics and Medicine can be trained easily by participating in MASSIVE sieges, whether you are awake isn't important.

Riding can be quickly improved by sniping enemies with a bow from afar. at 55-60 riding I was getting a point every 2-3 shots at around 100m.

As for training troops, this isn't the thread for it, but unlike Warband, the calculations for sending your troops into battle are much more in your favor. Additionally, it seems to me that the experience your troops gain when you do so is higher. I've been sending my troops into battle against looters (who really wants to fight them face to face when you're a lord anyways?) and I get 3-7 upgraded troops regularly. The range there is for groups of 10-40 looters.
 
It felt ok at the start because I was leveling skills quite fast and gaining perks and focus points and stuff. After a while though my skill started to level up extremely slowly and I just kinda forgot the skill system was there. Also didn't see any of my companions level up even after 20 hours of play time...
 
I really love the new system. It's the opposite of grinding as long as you're not one of those freaks that need their stats maxed in everything.

Of course it needs some tweaking so it works better but the whole system is great You learn the skills that You are actually using what makes your character an example of your playstyle.
 
I have been playing for 10 hours in the same game and not a single companion has leveled up.
very good summary of the game/the problem ! 18 hours for me and 1 lvl only for my medic, but still at 60, she never get any skill point in medecine (x5 speed). I found 2 medics, 2 path finder, 2 "rogues" but 0 engineer and 0 intendant if that exists...

edit: looking in the encyclopedia, i think engineers and intendants doesn't exist. Maybe it's our personnal job...

There's a real problem in my opinion.
 
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I don't think people understand the crux of the matter here. This learning-by-doing system. The reason why it's so problematic, is because, in an effort to simulate reality, it inadvertently limits the very idea of roleplaying itself. How do you simulate gaining the experience of riding a horse? There's a lot of possible ways for you to gain that in real life, but in a video game, it's impossible to account for all the possibilities, then you only have a limited specific ways to gain experience from it. This realization is what turns the game into a chore, as you often have to do the same exact way every time, just to enjoy the very action that it entails in the first place (i.e. riding a horse). Even further we can ask: Why bother putting the system in the first place? Why not just make the game like a traditional action-adventure video game? You can already see the experience of your character yourself. Why counting it twice?

With the traditional 'general experience' points, all the possibilities a character has are tied to two things: First of all to (potentially) any action they make from the viewpoint of the game rules. You can gain experience from killing bosses, completing a quest, or whatever the rules allowed. The second thing is the player can distribute the points themselves. The player then can interpret whatever happened themselves back then. This is what true role-playing is. On the one hand you have 'rules' that game designers have made. On the other hand, you subjectively decide what the details the character has done and what he's gained so far. The measurement points are just there for convenience. It's not even needed.

Now, if we look back to the learning-by-doing system, it is precisely the objective rules that have become too draconian and too intrusive, as to decide what actions count as 'experience', down to even the simpler stuff. It is true that Warband is too reliant on warfare-oriented stuff, but the problem can be easily alleviated by giving experience points to non-combat approaches to encourage them. However, some people would point out that the name 'Mount and Blade' itself already implies that the game should revolve around combat, first and foremost.
 
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This is not mount & blade: Total war, This is mount & blade bannerlord. It's a medieval "life" simulator. Yes, you can have lots of fighting and war, but you can also be a fraking blacksmith or a merchant. There is no focus on war exactly and this version of the game shows it. You have other ways of leveling up that is not by killing and making quests. Now you can level up without ever NEEDING to fight, how can this be bad? People are just crazy, I can't understand

That’s a nice theory but not accurate.

Say you want to be a medieval doctor. How do you level up your medicine skill without fighting?
 
That’s a nice theory but not accurate.

Say you want to be a medieval doctor. How do you level up your medicine skill without fighting?
At the moment, there literally isn't a way to not level up that skill without fighting. Making that previous "Bannerlord is a realistic simulator" argument rather naive and dumb. A poor system shouldn't be accepted just because of lame excuses.
 
This feature is forcing the player down avenues, it mimics linear RPG video gaming which is the exact reason I liked Warband so much and not Assassins Creed. Like the new system if you desire, but it limits freedom of the user.
 
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