Messages

1

General Discussion / Re: Bannerlord, OKAM or Meele battlegrounds

« on: December 16, 2016, 01:35:07 am »

I tried Tiger Knight, and I found it to be pretty awesome actually (I always wanted cRPG to have a mode like that, with hundreds of bots and the players being the leaders), but the horrible interface and lack of decent documentation kinda deterred me. But I am more into other games now anyway, mostly Ark and Rainbow Six, but once Bannerlord comes out I will definitely give it a shot. Though not on multiplayer, after all those years I don't really feel like fighting the veterans who play 8h a day since Warband got released.

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Spam / Re: It's done folks...

« on: August 28, 2015, 02:05:18 am »

I feel rather suspicious about this name...
We would make a great couple tho!

Nah, sounds like throwing a sausage into a gymnasium...

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General / Re: So... what happens now?

« on: January 06, 2015, 02:47:58 am »

That's true. But what about all the people which ought to be here discussing the failed kickstarter wildly? Or am I missing something?

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General / Re: So... what happens now?

« on: January 06, 2015, 01:10:55 am »

I am not playing any more, but to me it seems both cRPG and M:BG are pretty dead now, if we can go by the amount of posting going around on the forums. I mean we have a new forum here for a new game which is the successor of the game everyone here is addicted to, something important and devastating happened, and I didn't read a dozen posts about it here. Let alone something from the devs.

All I read in the forums is how EU1 is pretty dead and you have 20 people online during prime time. Now if this isn't sad. But what I can say is that this doesn't sound like "alive and kicking again", that's for sure.

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The Chamber of Tears / Re: Lol-ban

« on: January 05, 2015, 12:54:53 pm »

You just seem to be an idiot and an a-hole, and your buddy too. Too bad you didn't suffer from your ban.

6

General / Re: I backed the game.

« on: December 28, 2014, 04:52:05 pm »

M2TW has those features because the AI is in control of each unit and each man in the unit. They are not necessary for cRPG or MBG, because each character is controlled by a player. On the contrary, it would be incredibly gay to have the game tell me that I am "panicked" or that the "unit cohesion" of my group is lacking because of artificial thing X.

Then how do you simulate people being in fear of dying? I understand and agree that a dumb message or a bar lowering to zero would be kinda lame, but that suicidal lemming rambo behaviour has to stop in order to create a proper battle.

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General / Re: I backed the game.

« on: December 28, 2014, 03:56:26 pm »

Or perhaps you're just clueless. Tactics matter in M&B and they would matter in M:BG. Obviously. Just like in your gay example of Medieval 2, those knights are "more skilled" than your peasants, yet by flanking you could kill them. Skill does not make you invincible to flanking in M:BG either...

Yeah and it's as much a feature as in Medieval 2 with morale and such, yeah...

Tactics and flanking do matter, but only to a tiny extent, compared to M2:TW. Skill is of like 80-90% importance in cRPG, which is way over the top for my personal taste. 51% at the max it should be for me.

Anyway, enough on this topic because all it would turn into is a discussion about whose favourite wish game was the best. I stated my personal, subjective and biased opinion, and I am done. Feel free to disagree if you want, and feel also free to post it here. Just please stop insulting, because I think as long as I got a point there is no need to call my examples gay. M2:TW has mechanics for formations, unit cohesion, flanking, higher ground, stamina and for morale, cRPG/M:BG does not, and you can't deny that.

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General / Re: I backed the game.

« on: December 22, 2014, 03:24:38 pm »

I think with things like Kingdom Come: Deliverance around, it's really difficult to look appealing. And to be honest, I didn't back the game myself either, because I don't find this heavy focus on skill so appealing. It's more a dueling simulator than a real battle simulator. There is no real need for tactics or something like that, in the end just being skilled counts, they even advertise it like that, and I think that's a pity. In Medieval 2 I have already won battles where I have been outnumbered by a way bigger AND stronger force, but by somehow managing to get one of my weak units in the back of the stronger enemies which were fighting me uphill I managed to cause panic which due to a chain effect resulted in a mass panic and I ended up as a winner, having slaughtered 12 units of dismounted knights with 9 units of my town militia. This is actually what makes battles interesting for me, not the particular dueling. So if the game had a feature where big formations of NPCs with player controlled leaders would clash together, and where that "dueling" would be embedded into a system of fighting in formation alongside your NPCs or friends, with a morale system and all, things would look different for me. But I guess I am just asking for a totally different game here. But maybe my feedback can come in useful, perhaps I represent a bigger part of the target group than you or me would think, or perhaps I can give some inspiration?

Anyway, the devs have my sympathies for that failure, and I hope they don't get demotivated. God knows I was ranting against their decisions and their game design choices (if they even made any  ), but many people loved it how it was, so in the end they must have done something right. I hope they don't give up, and I wish them all best for the future. Even the biggest success usually starts with a failure.

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General / Re: I backed the game.

« on: December 22, 2014, 10:47:47 am »

I backed it as well on the first day of the KS, but it sadly did not reach the goal sad days, wanted to see it happen but just seems like they did not have the publicity they needed first time around.

Maybe the second shot they can get all their ducks in a row

But they didn't get even close to their goal, they merely reached a third of what was planned. Do you think a second shot would have higher chances of success?

Since the release of M&B back then there have been a lot of melee games out there, Chivalry, War of Roses, War of the Vikings, Life is Feudal, Gloria Victis, etc., the "attack or block on click" melee system is already pretty common, and I think the devs need to come up with something more special than a game mode where you build castles. The idea itself is quite nice, but apparently it's not THAT popular. I don't know. Perhaps the presentation wasn't just that good.

10

General Discussion / Re: Upcoming "Revival" patch

« on: October 16, 2014, 01:58:59 pm »

I guess those changes might raise the population a bit for some time, but it will drop again, because the basic problems of the game (balance of classes regarding the game mode, upkeep system, marketplace, multiplier system, banner balance) are not being fixed. People will get demotivated for the same reasons like before.

Nobody has stopped playing because of the changes which will be implemented here, and making the start easier for new players won't influence the problems the game has in general.

The more I think about it, those constant nerfs and this downright retarded sticking to "No! You keep your character and looms!" whenever a patch was applied surely had their fair share in demotivating players.

- You disallow players to respec or redistribute loom points after a patch which changes builds or weapon balance
- You introduce the marketplace feature, including training lessons and blacksmith for ridiculous amounts of gold
- For players who are dedicated the marketplace offered a place to make a lot of money and respec/rearrange loom points best to the "flavour of the month"
- Result: the players who play MOST and most likely BEST have no money problems any more (= constantly running around in better equipment), and can adjust to changes the best
- After any change, it takes time until people find out which are the most effective builds, and then it takes time for the devs to adjust the balance accordingly
- With free respecs (the planned 7 day system is fine by me and should have been implemented right away) this system would be much faster and less clumsy, allowing a much faster balancing process

But no, for some reason people decided that players should stick to their builds, making every patch a real gamble if you had an effective build. Of course people quit if you punish them without having done anything wrong. Or can you bring forward a single good reason why you forced people to stick to their builds and heirlooms? A single one? I bet you can't.

And as I listed above, that's only one of many many reasons.

11

Game Balance Discussion / Re: Dear balancers.

« on: September 23, 2014, 02:30:20 pm »

OK.

Go ahead people. Make maps yourself. It's not that hard after all. Joker, go ahead and code your conquest mode. Seems fips have gotten something similar to work for siege, so maybe hook up with him.

Anyway.

Unless someone actually starts DOING something, I consider all talk about maps and conquest dreams diverting from the matter at hand.


The point of my post was to show WHY infantry must be more attractive to play compared to ranged and cav, and this should be reflected by item balance. Why ranged (and cav) should be perpetually kept down in power. Because if infantry becomes unbearable to play, the mod very quickly dies.


"If cRPG is an aquarium or a lake, cav and ranged are the sharks and the piranhas. Infantry is the food. When food runs out, predators will also die (leave mod), albeit a bit later. This is why infantry requires good conditions for having fun, more so than cav and ranged. "

And NO. I'm not talking about extreme nerfs or eradicating classes. And yes, I understand the inherent flaws in battle, but to be honest, it cannot be THAT flawed. It has been the most popular mode for the better part of 4 years..

Balancing things also involves actually doing something. You are right, infantry must be more attractive to play, but balance is NOT capable of achieving this. You will ALWAYS have to run after your target, you will ALWAYS have to be in weapon reach to your target, and the other classes will ALWAYS not be restricted in that regard, and this is why infantry will ALWAYS suck on battle mode.

And battle mode is INCREDIBLY flawed, people are just unable or unwilling to see this. It was the most popular mode because it was the closest you could get to represent a real battle. But this doesn't work in a game, which is supposed to be balanced, whereas battles were supposed to be won by any means possible!

Seriously, for me the problem is so clear, I can't believe that everyone who wants a balanced game doesn't stand up and shouts "Stop the nerfs, give us another game mode!", because it is the root of all problems we have in the game (besides the shitty upkeep system).

Just imagine what will happen if you nerf archers and cavalry yet another time. Many of those will either quit playing or change their class, just to notice that they will STILL get shot (unless you lower archer damage or accuracy to 0), and they will STILL get trampled and backstabbed, even with slower, weaker horses and less damaging lances, and it will STILL suck unproportionally more than killing someone in melee after running around most of the time. And eventually they will get back to their initial class, and the complaints will grow again, and in the end nothing will have changed, apart from infantry still having a shitty game, but archers and cavaly having a shittier game than they had before.

There is NOTHING balance can do to stop you from running over the battlefield 95% of the time, trying to reach an enemy with your petty 0.5-3m weapon, who doesn't want to be reached. It is so obvious, and I honestly can not believe how you can assume that 5 points less damage or accuracy or a slower rate of fire or slower or weaker horses or whatever can seriously change how it feels to be infantry in an open map and having to kill archers, cavalry and - worst of all - horse archers. They simply can't!

People in general think very little about what they do in online games. And they have little understanding of how balance works, or why certain features work the way they do. And not many people would relate getting killed repeatedly by the same classes to problems with the game mode, rather than simply claiming the other class would be OP and requesting a nerf for it. And usually that's the case, but not in cRPG! It's a special case, since the classes were not created with some balance in mind, but origin from a game which wanted to resemble medieval warfare pretty accurately.

Let's just summarize what we have:
- a large map
- two teams
- the objective to kill all enemies
- a class which can pick their targets on long range
- a class which engages in melee but is so fast that it can also pick targets
- and finally a class which is neither fast nor can pick targets

So does it sound logic to make that last class which sounds so incredibly shitty stronger by giving them better stats? Would the class sound less shitty to play with? I guess not, it would still be slow and it still would not be able to pick targets.

Another approach would be to change the classes, but since this is medieval warfare we can't simply make up a new class with a less shitty mechanic

So the only, THE ONLY approach left is to change the focus on the classes. Find other aspects than mobility and choice of targets to determine what a class does and how well it does it, and you will fix the problem. If target choice and flexibility become less of an advantage, the issues are gone!

Now once for all: balance is not the solution, nor will it ever be! Compare ranged now to the ranged which was possible before the upkeep! You had plated archers with pinpoint accuracy, automatic fire and causing high damage! Compare that to the slow ass, low ammo, low accuracy low rate of fire archers with crappy melee weapons, and estimate for yourself if the extent of the archer problem lowered proportionally to the lowered power of that class. It did not.

This is not a matter of opinion, whether you want nerfs or not, it's not a general game design question, it is a matter of fact. Infantry does not have the same flexibility like the other classes, but has to play in a game more which relies upon being flexible.

I am not derailing this topic because I am talking about something nobody is working on. I am directing this topic to the ONLY solution possible, although the topic started into the wrong direction, and the only question left is: why is nobody working on that single, possible, only solution we have for that problem?

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Game Balance Discussion / Re: Dear balancers.

« on: September 23, 2014, 01:02:55 pm »

There hasn't been some continous nerf of archers and cav.

That is not true.

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Game Balance Discussion / Re: Dear balancers.

« on: September 23, 2014, 09:12:59 am »

Thomek, do you really think that...

... less damage for ranged and lances
... lower accuracy for ranged
... slower horses
... weaker horses
... higher upkeep for ranged and cavalry

... will change anything? Really? Even if you managed to lower the population of those for infantry "annoying" classes to like 10% each, do you think a battle should consist of 10% archers, 10% cavalry and 80% infantry? How interesting would this be? How much fun? It would basically be the melee only server, and we all know how popular that was.

And even THEN those 20% non-infantry players would...

... shoot you on distance
... shoot you in melee, stunning you
... backstab and trample you
... force you to CONSTANTLY look around you to check for threats
... run away if you try to attack them
... immediately stop and attack you again once you stop chasing them

I know some of those (like running archers) are less of a problem for your Ninja-build, but I am speaking in general, for all infantry. It's the gameplay mechanics, which make the class so unappealing to play in battle mode, and not the balance. There must be a reason that players have always come back to play cavalry and especially archers, after all those nerfs.

No nerf will help fixing this problem, because balance is not the cause of it! How many nerfs did we have up to now? And if you really think about it: how many kills can a good melee player score, how many can a good archer score? Both archers and cavalry are heavily underpowered already, stat wise. And still they make life difficult for infantry.

I think I won't even advertise for Conquest mode any more, you all know what my opinion is by now. All I will say is that you absolutely, positively need to get rid of that Battle Mode. It's poison for infantry.

To me you all go like "Cavalry is the bread and butter class of the game, but in our default game mode which is siege we simply suck! Please nerf archers and infantry". Now what do you think how far should you nerf the class to finally get over the problem of cavalry being not so good in quickly rushing a castle on top of a hill or surprising enemies on a battlement which is 2m broad?

Yeah. And now think about what you are asking for a class which got its opponents nerfed about a DOZEN times already, and which still has problems killing off all enemies, because it is neither fast nor can it attack on long range, but killing is what you have to do. The solution is obvious, I would say, implement a 13th nerf for those classes, perhaps you can finally make them literally unplayable, thus getting rid of them and saving the game... for infantry... for a while, until most infantry players get bored of the clusterfuck in the middle of each round... and cRPG dies for good.

14

General Discussion / Re: Official poll for removal of Mounted Ranged from cRPG

« on: September 13, 2014, 11:58:34 pm »

You basically voted yes.  Making bows and crossbows unable to be used from horseback basically means HX and HA are no more. therefore it basically removed all mounted ranged. Giving HA/HX worse stats than foot ranged will only made them completely useless.

The hate on HA/HX is completely retarded. You guys just want them to be a completely useless class so that no one will use it anymore. cRPG community is just a bunch of selfish fucks.  Its their playstyle dude, Deal with it

since cRPG forum is called forum.melee, lets nerf all ranged to the ground since everyone is melee.

- I am a polearmer who doesn't hate HA as much as you do

Now if you might stop your rant and the insults against me, I would like to clarify a few things:

I don't know if you read past the line you marked in bold, but I did not suggest to remove those weapons from horse archers. I rather suggested making a second set of ranged weapons specially for mounted ranged. I admit I did not write that, but I actually thought about making those weapons equally viable compared to the infantry archer weapons, just with a different focus, e.g. on firing speed and perhaps in exchange slightly less accuracy or damage.

My point was only to force ranged cav into immobility while shooting. I do not think this would make them uneffective at all, since foot archers aren't as well, and my suggestion would just turn ranged cavalry into foot archers which are slightly less effective but have the ability to get into better shooting positions and displace much easier and faster.

The other point is: I don't really hate mounted ranged or ranged in general (in difference to many others members here, granted). I just see the problems certain classes are causing in this game. Older forum users might roll with their eyes now, but my (in the meantime widely known) opinion is, that it's the game mode's fault. It's almost always infantry, which is complaining about the other classes, and as I have to admit, from their point of view, rightfully so.

Battle mode means you have to win by killing off the entire enemy team. This requires you to be able to basically be the "hunter" all the time. Which has two conditions: a) you are able to pick targets you are actually capable of hunting and b) you can prevent becoming the prey by evading "your" hunters.

Both cavalry and archers are capable of those things in different extents (cavalry is better at evading its hunters, while archers are better in picking weak targets), but infantry literally SUCKS at both things. Neither can they run away fast nor can they force someone into a fight most of the time. This renders them the only passive class in the game, whereas the other classes are active. While cavalry and archers can be "fighting" a few seconds after spawning already, most of the time infantry is just running over the battlefield. And once they finally start attacking an enemy, the fight is actually "interactive", which means enemies are usually blocking and counterattacking, which isn't the case most of the time when you are lancing or shooting. It could be that you attack and end up as the loser, and to land a blow you actually require your enemy to make a mistake by missing a block. The other classes do not rely so much on a direct failure, since they can attack unaware targets most of the time.

Summary: battle mode with killing all enemies doesn't work for infantry. It causes massive problems. And the differences between infantry on one side and cavalry and archers on the other side are most obvious in the case of ranged cavalry, because it combines the advantages of both without their disadvantages. It is THE perfect hunting class in a hunting game mode. In my eyes no buff/nerf or stat tweak at all could change that, because it's a problem of gameplay mechanics, and not of balancing weapon or character stats. You can't nerf HAs/HXs or buff infantry in a way that suddenly infantry will be able to hunt down HAs/HXs. Won't happen. The increased flexibility of cav and archers grants them increased fun on the battlefield and enhances their gameplay greatly, while infantry is more or less everybody's moron on the battlefield, desperately running after targets, trying to not get shot or trampled from all directions. They are a bit like the a little bit retarded kids from the neighbourship, which are only happy to play with each other (infantry vs. infantry clash in the middle), while the other kids are dodging them and making fun of them.

You have to change the damn game mode. If you had a conquest mode with several flags on the map which spawn right from the beginning, enabling the team to either win by capturing the majority of all flags or by exterminating the enemy team, things would be different. Infantry is good at taking and holding ground, and now this would allow them to actually win the game that way! Their passivity would be relativized, since they don't have to run after faster and more flexible classes. In fact the other classes had to adjust according to which flag the enemy infantry has decided to take and defend. A horse archer could win the map by killing the enemies, but infantry could win the map by not getting killed. And this time this is something infantry is actually good at. Just take a look at how "passive" infantry is in siege mode!

I have been advertising a true, single spawn multi flag conquest mode for a really long time now, and while many players seem to agree, most of them actually still prefer the round based team deathmatch, which battle mode actually is. Perhaps the devs should have bothered with creating a first prototype and testing how everything works out, but I guess with M:BG and everything this is a lost hope.

15

General Discussion / Re: Official poll for removal of Mounted Ranged from cRPG

« on: September 13, 2014, 02:21:46 pm »

I voted no, for the sake of variety. Leave them in, more classes spice up the gameplay.

Instead do the following (I can't believe I am suggesting a nerf):

- Make bows and crossbows unable to be used from horseback
- Copy all bow and crossbow items, remove the "unable to use from horseback"-flag of those new weapons again, add a "cavalry" in front of them and make them require both PD and HA. Since it's new weapons you can make them have different stats compared to those which the foot archers use.
- Remove any aiming bonus HA is giving

The result: we changed the playstyle of the class. Since moving while shooting won't let them hit the broad side of a barn they need to play more like "Dragoons" or "Mounted Archers", which means they more or less can use their horse only to position themselves or to escape, but must remain stationary to shoot.

Advantage: much easier to be caught by enemy ranged and cavalry
Disadvantage: no change towards infantry