Which leveling system do you prefer Warband or Bannerlord?

[Highest of all Landers]

I really like this system better than Warband because I can level skills by doing activities associated with them instead of having to kill enemies, I like going around towns looking for trade opportunities instead of having to attack parties and trying to kill the toughest enemies I can find so I can be a better trader.

I think that the feeling of having to grind comes from the snowballing happening in faction wars. The campaign map changes way too fast and we get the feeling that we are not progressing fast enough.

Some skills feel off IMO, like leadership, scouting and smiting, but other just level up naturally as you play, like medicine. I started out at about 20 medicine, 250 days in game and I got to 50 with 3 focus points.

In conclusion, those are my suggestions for the current situation:

Balance out progression, some features are just min - max compared to others, armies go around conquering quite a number of castles and towns in one go, while you struggle to have your morale above 70 to gain leadership xp

Add more activities that give you xp for certain skills. In Warband we had the "Train Peasants" quest, maybe a variation of that system could be used to level up your troops while earning xp for leadership and combat skills, for example.

Remove the skill learning cap, as it was mentioned before in this thread, having the attributes and focus points affect only how fast you learn instead of how much you can learn.

Make descriptions more accurate, what is travelling through rough terrain? What counts as rough? How much morale does my party need before being considered high?

Other than that, we all know what an Early Access is and we all knew the game would not be ready. Keep providing feedback.

 

[Slav Cossacksson]

Configurable Experience Multipliers - Updated for e1.5.4

Gives you full control of skill progression for the player or non-player characters by allowing modification of the experience added on a per skill / skill group basis as well as allowing the modifica

www.nexusmods.com

There's already people editing .xml on nexus go use them.

Nice.

The best solution would be to make it so it's like you have max focus points in everything and max stats, but only basic skills. That mod would make the game 100X better in the character progression department.

To everyone saying it's better than warband - you are wrong. Straight up. If you think reaching a level cap and then having to get some points by practicing bartering just so you can get a 'level up' so you can then go back to practicing... horse archery, you are wrong. You are trolling and you are wrong. No reasonable person would agree that it's more realistic or better to require this roundabout way to level. You literally need to have a leveling build to use just to get the points to unlock skill caps to level your real build. No sane person would think this adds immersion because it is entirely counter intuitive and unrealistic.

Leveling by doing is better, yes, because then your character reflects how you've played. I see the logic there. Want a new build? Trying playing differently. That's a good way to approach things. However with the current implementation the only result of level caps is to ensure that not only is there an optimal way to level based on how easy it is to acquire certain kinds of xp, but also what order to flesh out your stat points to achieve optimal skill growth. Which makes it far more grindy and gamey than WB could ever hope to be.

 

[Dolthar]

i agree, the gap between two levels are so big i literally forget what i was aiming to do with my character everytime i level up i gotta figure that out again, i know xp rate will be tweaked but still everything about this skill system seems intertwined in a bad way.

i would much rather prefer what we had in warband, its not because im used to that and im afraid of change like most people think, its because it was through and effective, was laid out much better so it was easier to look at, and when you leveled up it actually gave me that feeling that my character just got a little bit better.

this new system has its own quirks but im confident in taleworlds that if they polish it enough it might end up being better then warbands system.

but for now it feels like im playing a generic rpg game, its overused and reeks of console gameplay imho.

 

[stevehoos]

This is crucial, and a whole new issue in itself. The perks are unbelievably borked. I have sometimes sat staring at the screen in disbelief when I've seen how useless and irrelevant perks are.

The issue I am having is I can't tell if any of my companions are getting better with fighting skills throughout my entire 30 hour session. This ruins the whole idea of Mount and Blade's Warband's hiring and developing companions. This is as bad a sequel botching as I have ever seen. The rest of the game I like, but this may ruin it for me without some modding miracle.

 

[Benisfug]

Well, because we are exchanging opinions here. Everything you read is an opinion piece and therefore subjective. Especially "fun" is a rather wide definition for a sandbox game.

In Warband you would grind out quests and even more so combat to make you a master trader. People do not find that authentic, and your character sheet and stats is totally misrepresenting your playstyle. While the system was working it is also extremely superficial and simple.

In Bannerlord you grind trading to become said master trader. You grind combat skills to become the best fighter. Many also level passively by simply playing, like the steward skill and scale according to your army size etc.. Now this is also working and needs heavy tweaking, as the pacing is somewhat strange for many skills and the system is also not immediately transparent. While it is overly complicated it is also much deeper.

Yeah it sounds good on paper until you have to start crafting 1000 daggers to increase your skill. Makes sense but it's not ****ing fun.

 

[Brandis.]

Agree. Too difficult to get skills past the starting levels.

Levels on companions is pretty much irrelevant atm.

 

[sequeezey]

Agree and disagree. I think the focus system is fun because it allows you to pick which skills you would like to have accelerated xp rates for, and therefore you can have more of a "build" for your character not just have him be the master of everything.
I agree that attribute points are too meaningful to be that difficult to get, and I think the xp rates are wayy too slow. The fact I've gotten hundreds of kills with a bow (literally, there was a seige where both sides just sat there and stared at each other so I killed all of them with a bow) and I've only gotten to level 75 with 5x focus points means the system is way too slow and grindy.

 

[Sithrain]

As far as I can tell companions never get better at anything. I know it is theoretically possible, but I have yet to see it happen, not even the companion I hired at level 2 has made any progress and I am now level 10. It feels especially bad because in theory one character shouldnt be good at everything, but we can't effectively hire people to fill in skill gaps like we did in warband. The levelling/skill system feels like the biggest design flaw in the game right now, and I have no idea how they fix it without a complete rethink. I know some people think increasing the pace will solve the problems but i'm betting that those people haven't tried levelling up by focusing on medicine for instance.

 

[giltirn]

I really like the "learning by doing", it makes progression so much more organic. I agree that the artificial character stats and learning limits have no real value here and would support their removal.

 

[4Core]

I like the new system. Just need to be balanced and add more experience gain.

 

[Squirrellyboy]

Agreed. 2nd day playing the game, and I am finding it very hard to level up my skills when my companions are so much more powerful than I am. I can't do almost anything because I have no skills to use for conversations, converting units, etc. Been playing for 19 hours, and I feel I haven't been able to do anything with my abilities. The progression and getting xp is way too slow.

 

[Havada]

I love everything about the new skill system except the VIG etc thing. I kinda understand it's purpose tho but still don't like it

 

[Havada]

I like the leveling system but values you gain for some skills are too low and leveling companions seems to be undoable.

 

[stevehoos]

As far as I can tell companions never get better at anything. I know it is theoretically possible, but I have yet to see it happen, not even the companion I hired at level 2 has made any progress and I am now level 10. It feels especially bad because in theory one character shouldnt be good at everything, but we can't effectively hire people to fill in skill gaps like we did in warband. The levelling/skill system feels like the biggest design flaw in the game right now, and I have no idea how they fix it without a complete rethink. I know some people think increasing the pace will solve the problems but i'm betting that those people haven't tried levelling up by focusing on medicine for instance.

How could TW possibly implement something this counter intuitive even in a baebones EA?

 

[Cepheiden]

Yes, it's quite baffling that they spent all those years and apparently never took the time to deeply think about their rpg system. Really makes me wonder how their game designers dare to call themselves professionals. It's not even a matter of having to try those things out, simple math already tells that the player can't reach a servicable amount of skill points with this system.

This and the whole slew of other issues, where they just made things worse compared to warband, like the game being over after a year, is extremely disappointing. All they had to do was warband with better graphics...

Warband was the first game in the last decade that I bought on "release". Taleworlds definitely lost all their bonus points with me. Every further product of theirs I will wait for a long time after release only to make the decision whether I buy it or not.

 

[Draa Gul]

My major problems with the leveling system as it is right now are twofold and they have been pointed out by others as well:

Companions Do Not Provide Utility
I have yet to come across a companion that has the Medicine, Scouting, Trading, or similar non-combat skill. I have come across many companions with Rougerie. Many of those had low or no Cunning or Intelligence, oddly enough. Yet they have 9 Vigor. Basically, I have come across crazy good warriors but not across any just helpful people. I want me good ol' Jeremus who got people back up after taking a crossbow bolt to the head! ;D

Leveling Up Utlity Is Hard Without Combat
This issue I did not encounter myself, but someone here pointed it out and that helped me realize how bad this actually is. Like, let us look at Jeremus from Warband again. Even if you made him the worst of warriors, he still leveled up from just following your party and thus benefiting from training and XP handed to every party member after a fight. This allowed him to improve his Intelligence and his Medicine skill without fighting. All he had to do was tag along and heal people. I am not sure if healing people gave him XP, too. I doubt it.

Now our "Jeremus-esque" companion in Bannerlord would actually receive XP in the Medicine skill from healing people as long as we assign him the Surgeon role in our Clan. However, he will be a VERY slow learner, since he will not train any skills but Medicine. This will lead to him gaining skill points at a slow rate, thus he will gain levels at a slow rate which in turn leads to him gaining few attribute and focus points. If there are no points to invest into his Intelligence and Medicine focus, then he continues to level up slowly.

Summed up: Surgeons who do only their job level up much slower and thus only very slowly become better surgeons, while surgeons who run around beating looters to death will actually learn faster. This feels... off. A surgeon who focuses just on his job should learn it quicker than a warrior surgeon.

 

[Tuco]

I modded the skill points out of the game, it's much better now.

 

[Tlynx]

I think the xp system is better, but I would love to see Taleworlds take a page out of the book of some roleplaying game systems where you aren't just awarded xp for combat, but also for being successful in other situations, such as making a profit, negotiating, or healing your party. That would enable greater control while also awarding the different playstyles.

Edit - by xp system I mean the warband xp that gave you points when you leveled that you could funnel into whichever skills you chose.

 

[Tathas]

In M&B one was never supposed to be the Mary Sue who's wonderful at everything. You're supposed to use companions to fill the gaps on roles you don't excel at. If anything, there's not enough companion variety at the moment to allow this to work properly.

I've only found 5 companions so far, but all of them are combat clones. Not one of them can fill in the gap for anything.

 

[Chaingun]

Not too worried about this given there will be mods, but:

How about mixing old and new? Let combat experience in aggregate still level up other skill categories based on player choice like in Warband. It fixes that it was impossible to roleplay e.g. a trader without levelling up through fighting. Doesn't address dumb/unfun grinding in skills but it would be less of an issue if it is optional.