High level armor feels so worthless.

[Hayter]

I'm trying to play as a Battanian with no mounts, only melee.

And the thing that I noticed by playing a bunch of tournaments is, if just get hit once by one of these high level proficiency nobles with a 2-handed sword, my health goes from max to zero.

I'm not lightly armored, I'm wearing:

-Warlord helmet: 53 head armor
-Heavy warlord pauldrons: 20 body | 10 arm armor
-Highborn mail armor: 48 body | 22 leg armor | 12 arm armor
-Scale warlord braces: 25 arm armor
-Scaled boots: 26 leg armor

I also have the perk that gives me slightly more HP. I know this is not Warband plate, but you would think it should be able to tank more than one hit.


It feels like melee builds are at such a disadvantage compared to cavalry or archer builds, where they can dish out so much damage at minimal risk.
For example, my last campaign was an Aserai melee cav lord and I was able to
just press F1+F3 every battle and win with no losses (highest difficulty).

[RJboxer]

Correct. and this was posted by others before. But fear not, some trolls who have no idea what they are talking about will come in and tell u armor is super good, and they win tournaments all the time on day 1. with ZERO skill, and ZERO armor.. on legit, realistic mode.

It's like they expect people to believe them

Armor is quite weak in Bannerlord compared to Warband. BUT there are perks to offset this.

I think the issue is that For you to be some "tank" melee character you need to be far into mid or late game, and have many many perks to enable it.

Just giving yourself tier 6 armor isn't enough. (even on cheat mode). The OFFENSIVE damage of weapons in game is too high for the DEFENSIVE protection of armor.

You need to rely on cheesy tactics (step back when the opponent swings), or always fighting one on one.. or Having Good perks to help (50% reduction from ranged, 50% reduction from cavalry charge, +1 hp for every skill over blah blah blah).

And when those things are factored in, yes the game is quite balanced

[Edmund Greyfox]

This has been a complaint throughout EA, and there is a fair amount of truth in it. In warband having top tier armor turned you into a real tank that could shrug off most anything, and i think the Dev's tried to move away from that in Bannerlord. Armor does still matter, but not nearly as much as people expected. Not getting hit in the first place is your main defense.

[Berzerker Jay]

This is a silly complaint, and I hope that if the game gets nerfed in such a silly way, it's by a mod that I can simply ignore.

Think about it -- what armour do you think you should be wearing that you can just shrug off a blow from a trained warrior wielding a two-handed weapon? Especially an elite warrior wielding that weapon?

How many giant axe hits do you feel your torso should be able to take while you simply shrug off the blows like someone's throwing snowballs at you?

Hate to break it to you, but even if you had armour more advanced than any they had in this era, you still likely wouldn't survive that blow. Of course, I play on the hardest difficulties available, and I'll often survive one or two blows from two-handed weapons anyway, so you're being more than a little hyperbolic and probably need to play on easier levels if you are seeking less of a challenge.

[Major0Noob]

2/3'rds of weapons straight up ignore armour

the calculation is also pathetic
an impossible 120 armour will only mitigate 35%
50 - 33%
25 - 20%

a 1 damage pierce or blunt will just ignore armour


this means units are all 1-3 hit-KO
milita and legion are basically the same


if you want real armour use these mods:
arMore
armor does something 2
skills matter (tune everything to 1/3)

first 2 act like a 2 pass system, weak attacks will just do 1 damage, normal will be reduced significantly, heavy attacks will be in the 30-40, rushing into a spear will still kill you

skills matter will buff damage so elite's and soldiers will be able to kill each other

bonus: in skills matter go to the ranged and make rocks 1/3 weight/accuracy/speed

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Berzerker Jay:

This is a silly complaint, and I hope that if the game gets nerfed in such a silly way, it's by a mod that I can simply ignore.

Think about it -- what armour do you think you should be wearing that you can just shrug off a blow from a trained warrior wielding a two-handed weapon? Especially an elite warrior wielding that weapon?

How many giant axe hits do you feel your torso should be able to take while you simply shrug off the blows like someone's throwing snowballs at you?

Hate to break it to you, but even if you had armour more advanced than any they had in this era, you still likely wouldn't survive that blow. Of course, I play on the hardest difficulties available, and I'll often survive one or two blows from two-handed weapons anyway, so you're being more than a little hyperbolic and probably need to play on easier levels if you are seeking less of a challenge.

You are correct, But this isn't real life. It is a game. And it is NOT fun to go into battle. On horse... a battle that looked so fun... 600 of you, against 800 of them. nice combined armies... both sides have many high level troops. WEEE HAAAAAA.

You enter battle, "CHARGE" you go. you run forward and since the AI HAS CHEATING TARGETING. As you and your 250 allies rush forward. 30 of the enemy all turn and fire to you. at same time. 2 hit you and you are down.

Man, that was a fun fight.

Now all 30 turn back to the scrum and are killed.. But hey at least you get to watch. You can NOT play another guy, you can NOT drink a potion.. nothing.. Fights over for you.

And this is NOT uncommon. The fact that he Ai of 90 guys running to your guys.. you get behind them. Will ALL TURN AROUND AT SAME TIME. to polearm you.. then instantly turn back to fight, and get slaughtered because they lowered shield, or broke line to get u.. etc. Is pretty trash.

Yes Armor shouldn't be like a sci fi movie Forcefield. But this is a GAME, it should maybe feel a bit stronger with less Perk influence. And if not, then don't make the AI have it's targeting priority weighted 5000x higher for the hero, than anyone else on the field.

[Major0Noob]

haha RJ called it
i call these guys looter fanboi's
they want everyone to be looter

[Berzerker Jay]

TL;DR:

I need the AI to have its deck stacked against me, not nerfed. lol

Nerf the AI by turning your own difficulty levels down.

[Hayter]

This thread is not about melee skills/blocking, I know how combat works in Mount & Blade. I even probably have way more hours in Warband Multiplayer where people are generally better than your average singleplayer NPC, also played similar sword fighting/medieval games, etc. That's not the point of this thread, don't derail.


This thread is about why does 100-200k Denarii worth of armor can withstand as much as a 3k mail vest. Also, no. The 1 hit kill sword wasn't an exaggeration. If it was a blunt weapon it would have at least made a little more sense.

[Berzerker Jay]

Originally posted by JarGoGole:

This thread is not about melee skills/blocking, I know how combat works in Mount & Blade. I even probably have way more hours in Warband Multiplayer where people are generally better than your average singleplayer NPC, also played similar sword fighting/medieval games, etc. That's not the point of this thread, don't derail.


This thread is about why does 100-200k Denarii worth of armor can withstand as much as a 3k mail vest. Also, no. The 1 hit kill sword wasn't an exaggeration. If it was a blunt weapon it would have at least made a little more sense.

I'm really not trying to derail. I've heard this argument come up repeatedly, and I just wonder why players like myself can't keep the challenge? Why can't we both be accommodated?

Your character is wearing chainmail armour. Your character has perks improving HP, and likely some others improving your combat abilities -- like the NPC's you're up against. A lot of these nobles have very high levels for their Two-Handed skill, increasing the damage they're dealing. Some of these are wielding high-damage weapons. With the right conditions matching their perks, they can easily be increasing their damage more than your armour is reducing it -- and some of these weapons deal enough base damage to kill in one hit already.

In chainmail, no matter how much you pay for this expensive product, it's not rendered anyone in history invincible. It hasn't necessarily been impervious to any axe-hit. The historic Ulfbehrt was known for breaking through the metal of its day -- roughly the same day this game represents.

If we nerf this, that's going to affect our play, too. If we're supposed to do less damage even at high-levels for Two-Handed, what's that damage at low-levels?

There has to be a solution where both sides can be satisfied in this -- even if it's another difficulty setting for armour strength. The game would be a cake-walk for me if I could play any less carefully, so I would leave that armour setting at its normal or highest difficulty, but I support that option being available for those who want it.

[Nate]

it's been an issue since the game started, armour is complete garbage in this game, a peasant with a stick will chunk your hp in heavy armour, dealing 0-1 to knights was a pain in the ass, but at least it was fair given how high tier

[the.lovewyrm]

I think armor does its job. It's really good against arrows, for example.
Due to the somewhat binary nature of bannerlord combat, though, with stagger thresholds extremely, extremely low (even with the perks that improve it), you can still get, well, staggered.

You line up a strike on a looter from horseback. You eat a rock (which is also blunt for added damage against armor) and your aim's off.
The lowest of the low can stagger you, block you completely (unless it's 2h with crushthrough), etc.

But overall, armor does make a difference. Not sure it does enough warrant aiming for the super costly endgame armor immediately, though.

P.S.:
Regarding melee, you also gain the advantage of being able to fully negate damage with blocks, sidestep swings, etc.
So if you're good at blocking, for example, then Lord Smashsword can hack away all he wants, he ain't getting through, against your 1inch custom forged dagger.

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

Maybe it would be a good idea to look at other games ways of handling armor and health.

The old game Darklands had an interesting way of dealing with armor which could likely apply to Bannerlord. In Darklands wearing plate armor would essentially make you invulnerable to damage from a large amount of weaponry especially depending on how strong the attacker was. That didn't mean you couldn't be taken out of combat though.

The game used Strength and Endurance as its "Health" stats. Strength was the typical Hit Points health we're used to. When you take damage that armor doesn't stop you lose Strength points. If Strength hits 0... you die. Strength took time, expense, or healing agents of some kind to recover. Endurance was more like a form Stamina. If your armor blocked the incoming damage you would lose endurance instead. When your endurance ran out you would fall unconscious and be out of combat. Endurance was much quicker to recover from and could easily be regained right after a combat.

The game Kenshi also uses a damage mechanic along these lines. (For purposes of this conversation I'm ignoring the separate limb health and just talking about Torso health.) In Kenshi you can take Real damage that will lower your health points and eventually lead to you being killed. You can also accrue Stun damage mostly from blunt weapons but also from armor blocking damage. If the amount of Stun damage built up overpasses the amount of remaining Health then your character will pass out.

Something similar might work well in Bannerlord actually. I'm literally just pulling this idea out of my ass this very moment since I just stumbled upon this thread so obviously this is a VERY rough idea, but here's what I thought up so far...

Have the normal Health stay and function as it is. Any damage not stopped by armor would subtract from your health and when its gone you'd fall unconscious with a chance of dying.

However, there would also be a Fatigue meter. Damage that is blocked by your armor would increase your Fatigue. As your Fatigue level increases you would take penalties to your movement speed, swing speeds, and block speeds. So in effect the more tired you are the harder it becomes to put up a strong offense and defense. If your Fatigue amount outpaces your health amount then you would fall unconscious with minimal chances of actually dying.

Fatigue would naturally recover during combat so it would be constantly decreasing whenever you aren't taking damage. So if you're not surrounded you could pace yourself. However, the recovery rate should have diminishing returns (Exhaustion? Maybe tie the diminishing return rate to the weight of the armor?) So in effect the more Fatigue you recover from the more slowly you recover from Fatigue. This way in a long drawn out conflict you would eventually be worn out from taking hits and drop.

I think a system like this could work fairly well for how Bannerlords mechanics are.

Wearing lighter armor would mean that you would benefit from better mobility and since your armor would be blocking less damage Fatigue wouldn't be a factor for you. However, you'd be more at risk of dying and your recovery time between battles would be higher.

Wearing heavy armor would mean that you wouldn't have to worry as much about being actually killed and that you'd be able to recover faster between fights since its much easier to get over exhaustion than several stab wounds. Taking a hit every now and then wouldn't be a problem and you could easily shake of that out of the blue rock without an issue since you'd easily recover from the fatigue of it. While you wouldn't be easily killed outright you would still have to pace yourself in battle and could still be taken out by a relentless mob surrounding you.

[DaniTheHero]

Armor is quite weak indeed. If playing on what would be considered Vanilla or "Realistic" difficulty, a hit from nearly everything that isn't a looter or a tier 1-2 unit oneshots you.
Only really late into the game when you get the best of armors and quite some perks, you are able to tank 2-3 hits before going down, and even then only from smaller weapons and arrows. A polearm or a larger sword will almost always oneshot you.

Is this realistic and makes sense? I suppose so.
Do I enjoy starting a huge battle, then get oneshot at battle start unless I hide away because the AI is utterly broken in the way it focuses the player? Hardly.

There is a way to mitigate it however, ignore the "git gut" comments, play realistic on everything other than player received damage. Make it either 50% or 25% and have fun.

[Someguyinhere]

Originally posted by Berzerker Jay:

This is a silly complaint, and I hope that if the game gets nerfed in such a silly way, it's by a mod that I can simply ignore.

Think about it -- what armour do you think you should be wearing that you can just shrug off a blow from a trained warrior wielding a two-handed weapon? Especially an elite warrior wielding that weapon?

How many giant axe hits do you feel your torso should be able to take while you simply shrug off the blows like someone's throwing snowballs at you?

Hate to break it to you, but even if you had armour more advanced than any they had in this era, you still likely wouldn't survive that blow. Of course, I play on the hardest difficulties available, and I'll often survive one or two blows from two-handed weapons anyway, so you're being more than a little hyperbolic and probably need to play on easier levels if you are seeking less of a challenge.

Steel armor with padding underneath it. There are no greatswords in this game, the two-handed swords are mostly what we'd call a bastard sword in modern times, or some might know it as hand-a-half.

Quit taking your history from Hollywood movies, and stop thinking that people that came before you were idiots. They wouldn't have worn armor if it didn't work. The heavy armor in this game consists of high quality lamellar, scale, half-plate, and even brigandine (which is odd they'd include a late 14th century style of armor but say Plate Armor is too advanced.)

Swords do not cut through steel. It doesn't matter how strong you are or how sharp it is. Swords are also VERY bad at transferring kinetic energy in the form of a bludgeon. This is because swords are balanced with the majority of the weight down towards the hilt, which is what gives a blade its unique agility compared to top-heavy sidearms and polearms. There are ways to fight in the kind of heavy, top tier armor in the game with a sword. Especially in a tournament context. Going unga bunga and swinging it as hard as you can would not be one of them. It does jack scat all against properly hardened and tempered steel armor.

Sorry, but you're the one with no clue what you're talking about. There's a reason polearms dominated the battlefield, and there's a reason sidearms dedicated to anti-armor purposes existed and were used. You mentioned an axe. An axe is certainly better than a sword at bludgeoning someone, but you'd still have to get lucky to bludgeon someone to death with it if they were wearing the kind of armor the elite nobility are in this game. Could you get lucky, with say a blow to the head? Sure could. But it would still be luck.

[Zombiesbum]

Post was taken down due to quoting another post that was taken down, so he's a repost:

"Anyway, from the limited amount of the game I've played so far, the armour values vs damage taken/dealt does seem a little off. And I disagree that turning down the difficulty resolves this issue, you're still less likely to don heavier armour when it drastically slows you down. Additionally, revising armour values wouldn't just effect the player, but NPCs too.

Granted, the issue of armour vs damage is in my opinion less important when compared to the plethora of other issues like economy, AI, exploits, etc."