Winning 12 tournaments with 0 Skill & No Armor
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2023
- I've gotten comments about why I think the combat AI is bad now and decided to make a quick video showing my side of the story.
For this test - I reduced all skills to 0 with no focus points or attribute points allowed and no armor allowed. This is the worst possible case for fighting in tournaments, but it's still easy to dominate because of how bad the AI is at 1 vs 1 combat now in patch 1.2.0.
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Some might think I went a bit hard on the combat AI, so I decided to show a lot more detail as to why I feel the way I do. To reiterate - there are a lot of good changes made in the patch, but the few "bad" ideas (in my opinion) vastly outweigh the good stuff and make the game almost unplayable for me right now because there is no challenge. I still love Bannerlord and will continue to play in the future, but 1.2.0 just doesn't do it for me.
I already commented about this in the last video; don't feel bad about this, and don't feel like apologizing. Your experience, and the test you show can do the talking for you. Proper criticism is not bashing, and the fanboys are not going to like your content anyways.
Hey can you make a video about best craft weapon? Your old weapon video is outdated and a lot has changed
No pressure you don't have to
It would be interesting to see the 1.2.0 AI compared to RBM AI side-by-side. That might be too much work though.
It looks like the AI blocks in the direction they see you looking, even if you are already holding an attack started in another direction.
What patch do you find to be the best?
Just to put it into perspective for people who don't see it/haven't played, strong characters, especially those named nobles, on lower difficulties would often swing so fast and play aggressively enough that if you were notably slower than them it could be very hard to get hits in edgewise, and whiffs could be very easily punished by them when you did get to swing. Doesn't mean you couldn't win of course, or that there was no way to take advantage of them, but it was more difficult to, and one wrong move or getting caught on the back foot could lead to a very swift defeat. Now they're slow enough that a level 0 character, while maybe not guaranteed to win if played poorly, can very easily keep up.
I used to dread going against a Fian Champion 1:1 with longswords.
Yeah, specially Battanians and their 2h faints were horror
Why the crap have they not normalized tournament armor? Seriously, that is so stupid. It makes things so completely unbalanced, especially when the tournament weapons are so weak.
Yeah it makes nobles like thomund into damage sponges
I just love, how you squeeze so many ideas and test as close as possible to a scientific level out of this and probably other games. At some point we will see you study the source code and discussing numerical methods and how well they converge to the optimum.
Lol I wish! I've never tried to learn to code, but I imagine it would be incredibly helpful in this line of work :)
@@Strat-Guides That would be so cool, you could even make your own mods with a team who is more proficient in converting your ideas into code.
can you test this in 1.2.8? now they switch from blocking to attacking far faster, and they don't hesitate. in fact, some o them change their weapons and still get a hit in in the fraction of a second your character takes to make a single swing (happened to me multiple times today alone).
also is there something i need to switch in my key bindings on pc? because using a mouse and keyboard, if i block to one side, i keep the block there and moving the mouse simply moves the look screen, if i have to block in another direction, i have to release my block, move the mouse in that direction, press block again and hope i can make it in time. they are also more immune to knock back from kicks and shield bashes, and there is basically no way to go around their block if they have a shield in particular because the game is set to read your direction input when your click on attack and will always block from there
That's a shame cause a lot of the other changes in this update had me excited
Ok I'm not going sleep yet
lmao i just got up to this
Same
Honestly always went through the tournaments for getting a crap ton of money early game, really easy before this update and while it looks easier now with their more hesitant strategy I just hope it works better in big fights as they were never gonna make an actual good 1 on 1 npc opponent without them being stupidly op. Hearing you talk about "before" you're definitely overselling their previous performance, they did attack more aggressively but they are so impotent at single combat then and now that it's a joke whenever they don't basically get a 2 handed 1 shot situation.
Yup, I'm not seeing a big difference for what I normally see on console. But I know Strat has a lot more time in this game than I do, even though I have close to 200 hrs now.
My experience tended to be that the only ones that were an actual challenge at early levels, were nobles with good skills. Swingspeed was key for it being difficult. I don't think this, from how it looks, changes much.
@@mortenaassauthen8961 the nobles (and high tier troops) also just have a crap ton of armor while at the start, you dont. It can make some of the matches feel 5 times longer as you smack away with a blunt piece of crap on some one dressed in more steel than any shop will sell you.
They are super slow. The whole video was him without any skills, which makes them look better than they are.
This is basically how I start every new game. No focus points. It’s pretty easy to win imo
You are doing really amazing work by shining some light on these mistaked made by the devs. Thanks!
Hi Strat, I found a really funny bug that I thought you might want to know about. I went up to a mercenary working for an enemy kingdom who was sieging down an Aserai castle my kingdom owned. He was the leader of his clan, so when I talked to him, I was able to hire him. After we closed the deal, the game led me to the screen where I had the option to attack him, as he was an enemy when I met him. I attacked him, and he charged me with my kingdom's colors. I didn't want the game to crash, so I retreated before I could defeat and capture him. I just thought it was hilarious how we attacked each other under the same colors, and I would like to see what happens if the mercenary is captured. Just in case you wanted to use it in a video or something!
I think in my 60 hours of playtime on the patch, combat seems to be a mixed bag. I think cavalry is objectively way worse in almost every way, with behavior that doesn't match what the patch notes say so I hope that gets fixed.
Regarding melee combat, I definitely think that in general, in larger fights it's a substantial improvement. Armor makes more of a difference when the number of hits is significantly reduced. Anytime a change is made to decrease overall damage output, armor plays a larger factor, and I like that a lot.
In tournaments and when I'm vs the AI, I think in some ways it's significantly improved. Classically being able to get a free hit off of every single engagement as you approach the AI is as far as I can tell largely eliminated, and I do think that the AI does a good job blocking hits as it did before. There's definitely a decrease in the overall attack speed of the AI on the highest difficulty, so that needs to be resolved.
Otherwise the largest issue I've noticed is that spearmen tend to not actually try to hit approaching cavalry very well, perhaps balanced by the awful cavalry AI vs infantry.
In general I think your patch review was a little harsh on the AI changes; there are definitely problems, but I wouldn't have necessarily described it in the same way you did. And for better or worse, this is a beta patch and I think that when you review beta patches, your tone should be shifted to reflect the fact of the patch. Everything you said in that review is fair game if the patch is officially released without the necessary fixes, but otherwise I think you should've given them a tiny bit more leeway on the patch as the express purpose of these beta patches it gather information on potential issues from the forums.
Lastly, I also have an issue with your suggestion that Taleworlds is just copying mods at this point. Even a minute amount of research would demonstrate that a massive number of features, especially including weather, have been requested features since the game initially released in beta. These are not uniquely "mod" concepts that Taleworlds are copying, and in fact, Taleworlds is arguably doing a far better job at implementing these features. For example, campaign map weather effects is just flat out not included in any of the major weather mods to my knowledge. I think the rhetoric you used in regards to weather and features like it is unjustifiable even in the best light.
This completely is what I'm thinking. Especially when he normally plays with modded AI improvements, its VERY easy to be harsh against the regular AI when you haven't played them in a while. From a vanilla 1.1.0 perspective, the combat shown in this video doesn't seem to be very different. Athough I will say the cavalry does behave a bit odd. Overall though, it seems largely the same.
This is very on point, another note is that strat has how many thousand hours in this game? The real issue at hand is that the combat difficulty settings need to be reworked to provide that challenge to those that are looking for it.
@@DandyChigginz Yeah, I think the current difficulty settings just change damage. No AI buffs
Agreed bröther. Besides if you make the AI ridiculously competent then the average, casual player will be pushed away.
Leaving crazy duelist AI to higher difficulties or mods.
BROOOO The game combat was insanely easy now,the only way you can die is being outnumber by 7 tier 6 soldier
ORRRRR 40 tier 3 crossbow
I tried out the combat in patch 1.2.0 for a bit on Bannerlord difficulty and here's my observations:
- Tournament battles: Like in previous patches, a turtling AI can be countered with a kick followed by a quick strike. I find things get trickier when you get targeted by two enemies at the same time since them being more defensive means it's harder to quickly eliminate one of them. It's also harder to run into them while holding an attack to score a first hit. It takes some time to get used to but I feel that I'm winning less tournaments than before esp Battanian ones.
- Field battles: Cavalry will hold up shields more when they feint a charge and then retreat. But when it comes to a full charge, they will hold their attack instead leaving them vulnerable to ranged attacks like in previous patches. One thing I noticed is that enemy units seem to take longer time to switch targets since they don't target the closest unit as much as before. I don't find my character being targeted as much as before but being stuck in a situation when 2-3 enemies targeting you is definitely harder to get out than before.
Vanilla combat AI will always pale in comparison to mods that improve combat AI. I think Taleworlds might have tweaked something to the combat AI's unit targeting priority when trying to make them behave more defensively.
Side note: There's a bug in patch 1.2.0 where if you're in a siege defense as a mercenary or vassal and the faction makes peace with a minor faction fighting as mercenary for the enemy, your army gets ejected out of the settlement while the siege continues on.
Interesting
It appears like the campaign training mission might present more of a challenge :D
I was so close to starting a new playthrough cause of 1.2 but I’m really starting to think against it cause strat knows his sheeeit
On the one hand, the AI is significantly better, on the other hand, it was so monstrously bad before that it still clearly needs more work even with its improvements. You can clearly see higher quality units performing better as riders, being more aware of your movements and countering them, generally being patient and not just swinging to swing the higher skill they are, making low skill units seem low skill and high units seem high skill, but there are still as you've shown these pockets of cheesiness where the AI just doesn't know how to play the situation while riding or dismounted. They NEVER shield bash and they never try to kite you with a polearm while mounted nor do they understand when they are being kited, so it's like playing rock-paper-scissors against someone who never plays paper. It's still easy to force the AI into situations where you're the only person who is doing the correct move.
No he showed the riders being just as bad lol they block when they don’t need to that’s not being more aware that’s just being even more dumb and broken
That's why I'm sayin. The AI is already bad. The patch as far as I can see didn't make it any worse. Normally he plays with a mod that improves the AI as well I believe so he's not working with a fair baseline.
Is there a way to do this test against only nobles with extremely high combat stats? Like Thomund for example (270 two handed). In the previous patch, i would fight my retired character who has 330 in 2H and he would fight like a maniac. Using fake outs and blocking every single hit, like the higher their 1H/2H skill was, the more they blocked and the faster they would swing. Ideal level being 250-270
I would purposely level a lot of companion’s Two handed skill up to 270-310 and pick out their perks my self, because they would be monsters in tournaments. I have a video on my channel that gives a good example of how the AI fight with high combat skills. Thanks for all of the content, cheers.
Ive found closing the distance between my opponent when they do an overhead falx attack stops the crush through potential. Is this true?!
You just run directly into their body while blocking, and it doesnt crush through.
Random question: which character's Attribute would you maximize - in the sense of being more useful and advantageous compared to their associated Skills? I know this varies by playthrough "style" and each player's priorities, but I would like to get opinions on this issue.
The main difference I see is enemies just never feigning or switching guard. Which was kinda the main difficulty fighting, say, skilled Batannian nobles, because they do everything in a blink of an eye. Sure, you could consistently fake them out and bait a punishable whiff before, but now you don't even have to, just block once and buffer an attack from a random direction, there's a good chance it'll hit, and if it doesn't - repeat the process.
Now, I'm not a huge fan of how Warband handled high skill AI that could block pretty much everything, nor do I find M&B combat in general very deep, however, at least in older patches fighting felt more engaging just by a virtue of AI opponents having at least some mix-ups and tricks, as well as being more competent at defending themselves. Before, it kinda made sense to turn your brain off and mindlessly clobber an outmatched opponent, such as a peasant or a looter, that has a slow, short weapon and no skills or perks. Now, however, this strategy seems to work on just about any enemy in the game, which just takes out player engagement out of the gameplay process.
Eactly this, the only time I get hit (missiles or surprises aside) is from a feint I don't catch in time - and if they are not feinting, then it is too easy.
Yeah, the combat has devolved into a slug fest of attack, block, attack, block, attack, block. It's a lot less interesting without feint.
Even with the demonstraded flaws I still think its better than the previous AI, it might just have prolonged the fighting just for us to win either way but it feels like an actual fight rather than just some drunk running towards us spamming attacks. It might not be good but, in my opinion, its better than before.
I agree on you with that. Previously you just land first hit and AI would disregard it's safety and mostly ignore blocking. So fight ended in 3 swings. Now i sometimes have to break the shield.
Hey, just a quick question, what patch u prefer? Can u make a video on what patch to play and why?! Thanks
I think they will fix 1.2 soon so probably this one once they address those issues!
Love this channel, short video idea: which units in bannerlord can take on the most looters alone in combat.
You're awesome Strat thanks for the video
I used to like side stepping thrusts and vertical attacks to punish them and you almost can't anymore because they just attack so slow
I haven't tried it in the current patch, but crouching underneath thrusts and some swings is hilarious. Love doing it while "training" companions in tournaments.
Strat is the Matthew McConaughey of Bannerlord: he never misses an opportunity to take his shirt off.
Is there another mod you use to speed up combat time? I thought it was RTS Camera, but didn't see RTS Camera message in chat when you sped up
Idk if things changed in recent a recent patch or I am just bad at melee combat, but I cannot land a hit on a noble or tier 4+ troop anymore. They seem to have near perfect blocking and recover faster from a kick than I can follow through.
Yeah I think they adjusted the higher tier units in a recent patch
I don't know what to do. Some tournaments have lords that will move all over the place, their swings are super fast, their parries are perfect and kicking them is game over 90% of the time because they will move out of the way just in time.
I just fought a tournament with a dude named Kinteg and he wins literally every time even when my companions are in. I couldn't even get 1 hit on him.
Hey Strat, does RTS camera work in 1.1.5? I wanna use it but I read that it causes crashes for a lot of people
I'm not sure, I've only been on 1.1.4 and 1.2.0 lately and it was working fine for those
@@Strat-Guides The one via nexus? Thank you for your response!
I find 1v1 is not a challenge like you showed here. I find when I fight more than 1 opponent on the new beta that they perfectly match my movement in unison. I always would move to prevent other opponents from getting a strike on me. Now they can circle me quickly to flank if I am not constantly moving backwards or to the side. So far I think my athletics is only at 75 and never picked speed buffs so that could influence it too. Still I find 1v2+ to be harder than before. I have never used mods nor tried RBM. I have not put any points into any combat skills either.
Hey Strat, not sure if you’re going to see this but there’s one new mod that recently just came out that I think would be an amazing addition to your content creation as it allows you to modify the name of any of the kingdoms in game with out actually changing the culture they belong to.
The mod is called: KingdomEditor
I think it would be an awesome addition to your historical person play troughs I.e. Spartacus, Harald etc.
Love your content and the attention to detail you put in every video! 🤘
Interesting, I was looking for something like that for the previous campaign actually! Thanks for the heads up
@@Strat-Guides My pleasure, he also has a mod where you can change the culture description I.e. at the beginning of your campaign when you choose what culture you will play with, but I guess that would be more useful for mod creators like Realm Of Thrones etc.
Still between these mods and Detailed Character Creation, oh and also another mod I used that worked quite well which is Rename Any Settlement, sky is the limit!
You want to add some of the challenge back? Plug in a controller and I’m sure you’ll find the challenge pretty appropriate. Also, I don’t consider swinging the camera to attack faster an exploit. To me it feels like an intended feature to emulate how if you only swing with your arm (just pressing the button) you’re not going to swing as fast or as hard as if you used your whole body (turning the camera) all of that is just physics. Now, if turning the camera made it so that the attack animation played out and finished faster for whatever reason that’d certainly be a cheesy exploit and probably more accurately a full on glitch.
Hi Strat, were you using a Javeline as a melee weapon? 🤔
Everytime I watch your videos I'm like "Oh yeah you can kick and bash." And proceed to forget immediately after
If I'm not mistaken, previously when someone in turnament have really low lvl with bow they was shooting, but walk closer because they miss a lot. Now i see Imperial Cataphract just standing and shoot all those terrible shots.....
1.2 is unplayable. i couldnt assign roles to my companions because they dont appear in the party tab. even if assign them by talking to them, my clan leader still is assigned to the role. it happened after i lost to a fight then called my companions in clan menu. saving then exit didnt help. i just rolled back to current version because of this.
i still did well on tournaments/combat tho, gotta get those noble mounts to sell and your early game is already done. sword and shield fights just takes longer because AI tends to block more than attack. you can still cheese with high athletics, just run around them slashing the opposite side where you're running = your hits always lands first(this also works when you are 1v2 or even 1v3).
So, here is what I think might be happening: the combat difficulty on the menu + this patch changes might be broken balancing wise, it is possible that the changes made lower combat difficulties harder but the higher ones easier cuz AI in higher ones focus on a more balanced aggression maybe? And the changes made the higher difficulties to pretty much only defend
combat has become significantly harder because of the increased defence.
Yeah it's a huge difference compared to what it used to be
So completely unrelated to the point of the video, but can you usually press E to control a teammate? Or is it a new option/a mod?
It's part of the RTS camera mod.
@@Strat-Guides Thanks!
I agree the more trained units should be trained to exploit combos and kicks/bashes situationally, but I imagine programming too much movement into two thousand soldiers in a big battlefield at the same time would crash most games lol
AI in my opinion, is never going to be as good as a human player. If I want a deep duel experience - I go play multiplayer and its really fun. That's how they put 1000+ troops on your screen. They don't have too complex multiplayer moves. Total War has thousands of troops, and they have less behaviors than Bannerlord. But yes, I do agree the AI has been downgraded alittle and I hope they rollback or make changes.
Kick and hit, kick and hit....wax on, wax off....yes, Mr. Myagi sensai!
It was rather easy before. i usually finance my early smithing grind by running from tournament to tournament, getting at least the mercenary clan tier from it. at that point i decide if i want a more combat oriented or mor economy and strategic oriented playthrough. For the former i become a mercenary straight and abandon my tournament run. for the latter i keep doing tournaments until i hit vassal tier. preferably i am also at place one in the tournament leaderboard at that point with a good gap to the guy on place 2. All the money thanks to Tournament wins and smithing flow into workshops. Now i become a vassal, with a steady influence and money income and set to maintain and field armies.
I took a bit to get used to the AI behavior but i agree, that they feel easier now. A little advise when it comes to the overhead billhook strikes: the natural respond everyone has is to back off and block. But instead you should close in. at worst you get hit by the pole and not with the head for way less damage. if best, you can make him stop the swing or enable a kick.
I think its just the massive skill difference. A lot of people who stick to singleplayer tend to have a tough time with some high tier NPC's while people like me who player MP on the regular, find the AI to be a walk in the park to the point I can win any tourny at lvl 1 and with starting armour. And when I tested the update it def became a lot easier.
That’s why difficulty settings exist
@@kaniuoh911 I always play on Bannerlord difficulty setting. You can't really go higher without some sort of AI tweaking mod.
@@zanderman4059 no no it wasnt directed towards you I was just talking about in general the hardest difficulty should be way harder
@@kaniuoh911 Ah okay mb. Yeah maybe some sort of extreme/very hard mode would be interesting.
@@zanderman4059 no even the hardest difficulty is too easy whenever I go into a battle I just let me troops stay still while I go slay the enemy tropps and they do nothing while I attack them 😭😭😭 Im playing on hardest difficulty everything set to most realistic its so stupid
Also, I generally win 1v1 mounted tournaments in Valandia by just bracing the spear on foot. Also, generally have next to no polearm skill.
My favorite tournament strategy is the "Spin and win"
Because the AI attacks so slowly I just walk circles and spam my attack on them.
You are doing it wrong. Just stand and click left mouse fast as you can non stop, thats all . Try it !!
What Strat Gaming is trying to say in this video, is following. Before this patch it was frustrating to fight high level NPCs, because they were TOO FAST TO BE REAL. Now it is at least somewhat realistic. Though some low level NPCs might be considered slow.
Circle straffing cheese still works. I see no tangable difference
I didn't test that, but it's good to know lol thanks! I thought the whole point of the change was to fix that
@@Strat-Guides to be fair I play on console. Can't confirm for PC
Man masters combat, laments his martial prowess
You are like, way better at combat than me. I wonder if ill notice the difference. They do look slower bit i think yhe real problem is my risk assesment 😂
In RBM they are a pain to beat sometimes. It's being so long since I played vanilla that i don't even remember how bad it is lol
In order to make an actual assertion/assessment of new AI vs old, you need to play against the SAME troops but using the older AI. And not just one fight each test. Multiple times.
Can you not setup a test map shown in your video here? czcams.com/video/4Kc7-tWXsXA/video.html This way you can repeat the same test and guarantee unbiased results. Fight the Sturgian axeman or something several times using the old AI. Then switch to the new patch and setup the same combat scenario with the Sturgian axeman and fight again several times. This way we could see a genuine, direct comparison instead of "It feels worse".
*(These below were my initial comment and all of it's edits, felt dishonest to remove them)*
Don't you normally play with a mod that makes the AI fight well? I feel like you could've easily gotten used to that mod. Maybe play against vanilla AI on the PREVIOUS patch so you can actually get a baseline.
Also for the Khuzait 1v1 glaive fight, pretend to play chicken but double tap S to slam the brakes. The Ai will swing too early b/c of your momentum change and you'll be able to swat them using their speed for dmg buff
At 21:45 your ally definitely wasn't in-between enough for the AI to be going out of his way to get to you. Not only that, your ally has a spear. It's much safer and more reliable to target the horse guy. The naked horse guy. Not a good example to say they still prioritize the player when attacking you was genuinely the best decision they could've made there
24:43 I play vanilla. I am not on the recent patch. The AI being dumb like this isn't new to me
27:49 That's typically the peak for fights for me as a vanilla live version (1.1.0) player. My wife being the main NPC that can actually throw hands with me
He’s done whole play through a on vanilla without mods he’s and he’s currently playing on beta branch of the new patch he’s absolutely right about what he’s talking about he has way more hours than you and he actually breaks these things down
@@MilkTankz Making these judgments is unfair without giving a direct comparison. I really would like to see an accurate assessment of the new AI but destroying tournaments isn't the way to do it.
His standards have dropped a little
Perhaps the AI should fight each other the new way and revert to the previous aggression levels when targeting the player?
tbh I didn't notice any difference in the tournaments compared to default ai
Are you playing on reduced player damage or something, watched you survive 2 blows with glaive at 18:00
?
It's on Bannerlord difficulty. Those were both thrust attacks, not swing attacks and we all know how much Bannerlord HATES polearm thrust damage lol
I see it. AI used to do fake out attacks and sidestep more often.
with the 2h polearm duel in vlanda tournaments you can just backpeddle and spam overheads and the AI is stuck in defense mode🤣
bro can you do a new video, crossbow seargents are chain chamberblocking , not sure wtf is up
this is why I keep my difficulty on normal :-(
This video shows that winning is fairly easy, in an an absolute sense, for a skilled player, such as yourself. It doesn't tell us much about how much easier (or more difficult) it is in comparison to 1.1.0.
I still think 1.2.0 is more challenging than 1.1.0 because the battles take longer, require more concertation and stamina and are less predictable.
In 1.1.0 the super aggressive AI would swing like clockwork and it was trivial to win every battle in 4-5 seconds. One block or dodge and then 1-3 consecutive hits (depending on weapon) just as they start winding to hit and open themselves for attack.
Your conclusion was that blocking is way easier now and you are obviously correct. But besides blocking you need to land hits in order to win and that part is way harder. And for me the overall result is that it takes more skill now. This might actually be bad and make the game worse/less enjoyable but that is a totally different discussion.
Anyway KUTGW!
yea, feel the same. the AI block more which mean harder to hit them, the longer the figh last the more things happen arround, go to the practice fight where 6 men fighting each other your point will come true
Thanks for making me look like a right weirdo on the train... Watching naked medieval computer characters duelling 😂
Scary that all this is without combat skills
the issue with the previous AI was that it always attacked when it got in range if you didn't have an attack prepared or were blocking, unless you danced in and out of range long enough for the AI to go for an attack anyway. this meant that you could always get the first hit in by stepping back out of range immediately on getting in range, starting your attack, then stepping in range to your attack connects. you need to know your ranges, but once you do then one tap weapons become an easy win in a 1v1, and tend to kill enemies easy even with multiple enemies so long as you can back peddle faster than they can move forward. the messiness means that the same tactic doesn't work, but as you pointed out there are new issues that make it easy still. before one handed weapons were tough since they don't one tap and you had to back up your attack with the ability to block, which isn't that hard depending on settings. big battles is the real change, which now it is easier since if you back peddled before to one tap enemies you eventually run out of map unless you had such a massive advantage with movement speed that you can literally run circles around the big clumps of enemies (which is why horses made thing much easier in the early game). maybe the direction they are going in for the AI will pay off later, but i think you are right that this new AI for now is a bit worse than normal.
So watching the tourneys, aside from my seething hate for the Sturgian ones coming up it looks like the AI really breaks when holding a shield. Like they miss too many blocks and turtle while the two handed foot fights actually managed to get some hits and parry decently. Horse AI is still trash so no change there lol.
I miss Brainy Bots
13:40 that's a good combat tactic, not a cheese.
But what about battles? I get that it sucks that tournament difficulty has taken a big nerf, but my impression is that the combat ai change was targeted at actual battles, and the effects on tournaments are unfortunate side effects, basically bugs. Personally, i would take better battles over better tournaments.
In all the testing I did, it seemed like larger battles were mostly unaffected by this, but I would have to look at it closer to confirm. As I mentioned in the patch testing video, I did some big battles, but I think the best way to do it would be side-by-side comparison for 1.2.0 and the previous patch and look at behaviors. It's tough because it's mostly qualitative, which means there will be a huge bias from the observer :(
From what I can tell from Strat's patch video and what I've seen of the new battles, they made the AI more defensive by pre-empting blocks and blocking a few different directions before trying to make an attack again - it's not that they're blocking more in regards to actually reacting to attacks, it's that they're intentionally not attacking as frequently, which is what slows the combat down.
@@wizardkevin101yeah, wasn't the whole point of the AI change to make battles last longer, so the AI wouldn't just death charge and a side gets wiped in 20 seconds?
@@twiztedmind209 yeah, it accomplishes that goal, but not through organic interactions. They're not blocking in reaction to attacks, they're blocking for the sake of blocking.
Instead of having the AI read incoming attacks and block in an appropriate direction and retaliate, they attack once, block 2-3 times, then attack again.
It's a static pattern, not a dynamic reaction to actual combat.
They could've achieved the same effect by simply having the AI pause for 5 seconds after every attack.
@@wizardkevin101 ah, okay. See, I play on console so I haven't had the opportunity to test it and feel it for myself, all I know is that is that it was meant to increase battle length, and I thought it just has the side effect of tournaments becoming easy as can be, I wasn't aware of specific patterns like that. It's still in Beta so hopefully they do tweak it.
I hard you liked total anihilation , and suplementy Commander. Theme is a new version of TA made open source for comunity called beyond all reason. It doesnt Look great but trust me IR player fantastic and has a dozn optimisation tools :3
I used to get stomped in twohanded duels, not anymore. 😂
Just swing and then turn to run away. Rinse and repeat
Hey Strat, I've been watching your Bannerlord & other content pretty much since you've been making them. I think that you're the best Bannerlord content creator, and it's not even close. I especially loved your skill & perk guides and the mini-builds you've made at the end of each perk guide. But this video is weird to me, it almost seems like you're trying to convince the viewers that the vanilla Bannerlord AI is worse than the previous versions despite the video showing the opposite.
The previous Bannerlord AI was dogshit (except Caladog in tournaments). And I mean, literally the only thing you had to do was to bonk the enemy on the head and you would probably win 2/3 of the tournaments. You could always take 1 step back a bit before the enemy even started their attack animation to get them to miss their attacks and get 1 free hit in (and likely 1-shot them if you had a 2 handed weapon). I mean, of course, the new AI's not even approachable in difficulty to RBM (which is not surprising, since as good as it is, RBM is not really beginner friendly and the combat skill of its AI necessitates the use of the posture system), but it feels a lot harder to fight - and this is coming from someone with about 1k playtime in BL and WB combined, with probably 200ish hours of RBM experience. I think you're too experienced (with RBM nonetheless) and a bit too jaded/tired.
This video shows some worrying stuff about the AI, such as sword & shield warriors not moving, unhorsed cavalry with the glaive being less agressive and choosing to block, and the most borked one being the horseman continuing to attack you while you're holding block and your teammate is stabbing them, etc. But to me, even with this video, the combat AI seems like it's improved, especially for newer players which probably can't even block that fast or accurately against enemy attacks. I haven't tested the patch as in-depth, so I'm not sure if very high level fighters like Caladog feint as often or not, but most fighters are overall harder to me. Still not too hard, granted I've played over 1k hours in this franchise, but harder. Do the other people's experiences match with mine?
PS: I agree with your other gripes with the patch, such as formation targeting being janky (although I still think that it's a very big positive even in this state, but as I've said, I haven't tested the patch too in-depth) and ladder pushing being straight up badly implemented.
This 100%. Although with 193 hours in vanilla 1.1.0, Its not extremely surprising to see the Ai get hyperfocused on blocking the player and ignoring the other AI nearby. I use this to my advantage in tournaments a lot.
Overall the combat doesn't seem too much different and I think Strat is just used to RBM and forgot how dumb the AI normally is.
I've done my own testing on Bannerlord difficulty. My observations are:
The AI blocks a lot more and it's a tad more difficult to land blows (previous versions the AI hardly blocked and prioritized attacks the majority of the time, making theme extremely easy to hit). They do sometimes block in the wrong direction.
The AI attack rate is about the same (the AI has never done multi hit attacks). The AI rarely feints. This is making the AI's attacks much more predictable and easier to block.
The AI is not moving around as much. Also, makes it easier to block them.
I'd say the combat is mostly the same in terms of difficulty (still pretty easy). Perhaps, slightly improved defensively, but took a bit of a downgrade offensively (but that's from the lack of feinting, rather than slower attacks). Bash and kick has always given the player a huge advantage against the AI, and the AI has always been pretty dumb and easy. It is strange that Strat is suddenly just realizing it.
@@TheCybercoco Unfortunate that they feint less. Always really cool when they do that, b/c it feels like they're actually thinking about how to outmatch you. Blocking more I'd say is a good thing if it didn't make then offensively nerfed which it seems might be true.
The AI has generally always been pretty easy for me and I never even use bash or kick. Also I'm on bannerlord difficulty, because in my mind realistic mode is the only mode 😎
I guarantee if they wanted to, they could make the AI a powerhouse. It's not like the game can't tell them which direction to block. The AI has the advantage of knowing everything. The player has to use their eyes. The AI has to have a bunch of extra stuff added to their decisionmaking so the player has a window to attack. They're just having a tough time balancing it to be fun for both new and experienced players
It would be better if thay added this as an "easy" difficulty option in settings and leave the previous one as medium or hard.
27:27 It's a lot easier to just move in one direction when they're getting ready to throw and as soon as they start throwing just move left.
I'd like to see you block a Risar Commander in MO2. :p
The one major thing i wanted from Taleworlds was to make the game somewhat harder. It was so damn easy as is. Now what the hell is that??
the challenge comes when you play like me and run head long into every fight
The quality people who built the game are off elsewhere while trainee accounting programmers have decided to have some fun.
who was complaining about combat? the ability to auto-aim the blocks already existed...
25:24 Anyone else see that?
Again at 26:58.
It has something to do with the render - for some reason a frame gets corrupt. It's the recording, not the game :)
They should buff spears.
yea, thats really bad. i remember how it was to fight caladog or thomund in tourney - sweat and dicey, their swing speed is very fast, they easily keep or close the distance in and out of strikes, feign attacks if you try to turtle(block too much), and impervious to feints themselves. viable way was to catch them on mistake - dodge the swing last second while attacking, kick when he gets too close(which they never did unless you have reach advantage or cheese like Strat did in video), and really cheeky one with circling dodging thing. how? thats just pathetic.
Yeah, bannerlord’s small scale combat shows how it lacks. Even with no combat ability, skill is all you need to take on champions like Thomund, Caladog, and Garios. I walk into my first tourney naked and weak and step out with a new wadar hotblood that sells for like 16k fmv. Then head to battania to pick up a full army of the noble line archers and It trivializes early game. your character pops out as a god among men winning every battle, commanding his troops to only victories. Really breaks the immersion. I mean, I could struggle with imperial recruits, but I’d just turn them into archers and the same deal.
it might not be challenge for u, but for others it might be. me personaly play with auto block on and i still sak deep in fights
Good review of how silly the combat is now. Hopefully a miracle will happen and taleworlds will fix it
I think what most of people told you, is that the AI is better now in beta 1.2.0, and not that the AI is good or challenging. If you run exactly the same tests in 1.1.5, you are going to find that the AI is really silly and you can win tournaments even easier than in your 1.2.0.
Plus, you are fighting regular units and saying that they are easy to kill, and yes, but it has been the case always. Regular units are al least able to block some incoming attacks now, which was really rare before, and you could defeat them with two hits really fast.
It would be better if instead of blocking more they would just be more responsive to what you are doing
Its so very TW to use a sledgehammer to "fix" something that really just needed fine-tuning.
nice vid
tbh the randomness of the free for alls, as well as overhead attacks curshing through blocks sometimes still makes it kinda annoying to fight tournaments. If you have bad luck all your teammates die within seconds and you are in a 1x3 situation. way to luck based imo
3:16 is it just me, or was the killing swing like 1 frame?
He’s cutting a lot out…. Possibly making a mistake here and there
tbh taleworld should just implement RBM to basegame
good time for newer players to practice manual blocking
2 words
Save scum
You’re welcome
Start why don't you do a play thru with the realm of thrones mods, it's one of the best mods and there is such limited info on it and everyone who play it doesn't do as good a job as you
wanna cheese the 1v1 tournament in 1.2? go backwards and attack, 90% of the time you'll land hits faster than they can hit you.
when the fuck this game is going to be fixed, they need to stop adding anything just fix the bugs and leave us and this game alone
If someone is not good at playing singleplayer game, there are tons of mods that make combat easier.
What was the point to ruin AI for everyone?
all i know is i tried 1.2 and it fucking crashed about 2 hours in. back to 1.5!
Woppaaaaaa