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cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Game Balance Discussion => Topic started by: dontgothere on January 18, 2012, 05:30:05 am

Title: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: dontgothere on January 18, 2012, 05:30:05 am
Hi!  We've got another thread going on this subject, and it makes sense to confine discussion/debate/suggestions to that one. Chime in at http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,23853.0.html   You'll find my own arguments and my suggestions for alternative nerfs on page 2.

For those who don't know, basically the change means that headshots do more damage, but body shots do significantly less. For example, a masterwork Arbalest or balanced jarids with maxed powerthrow can now no longer one-shot armorless peasants with low HP.  Additionally, high-level, plated enemies are now basically useless to engage, even with high-tier ranged weapons like the arbalest, longbow and jarids.

Notably, these nerfs were applied as a blanket tweak to all ranged weapons, regardless of the fact that xbows, bows and throwing weapons all involve different styles of play and tactics for success. As it is now, post-patch, Xbows are useless unless you headshot, due to their long reloading time. Only low-damage, low-difficulty, fast-firing bows are truly viable, due to their increased chance of headshots. Throwing weapons become unplayable due to their low ammunition amount and their relatively large reticule, and with the lowered damage it takes about half of a full loadout of jarids just to kill one reasonably armored enemy, lulzily making throwing stones a more effective weapon than throwing spears.

This new thread exists only to have a simple yes/no poll to get a clear picture of how many players are opposed to or in support of the nerf to ranged damage in the last patch. I think it makes more sense to keep the discussion to the thread that's already in progress, linked at the top of this post, so this is the last I'll speak up here unless, of course, everyone ignores that.  :P  If the other thread had a poll, I would not have started this one.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: dontgothere on January 19, 2012, 10:50:18 am
sorry but, for the lulz:

10 powerthrow, balanced jarids (77p damage)


visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Osiris on January 19, 2012, 11:44:38 am
your playing rageball in that pic. and in rageball your health regens. if your going to show SS at least show battle :P
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: dontgothere on January 19, 2012, 03:29:12 pm
shit, you're right, didn't know that rageball has health regen :o
my bad  :\

I don't think it regened in the time I took those pics but I can't be sure, so you're right this one don't count.

Nevertheless, 5-7 jarids for heavy plate + high IF is consistent with my experience since the nerf, and some quick math.  i'll try to cap and post a pic from siege or battle later, if I can find a willing victim.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Xant on January 19, 2012, 03:35:37 pm
Toldcha bro, your shit was waaack.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Tears of Destiny on January 19, 2012, 05:13:56 pm
Quote from: dontgothere on January 19, 2012, 03:29:12 pm
I don't think it regened in the time I took those pics

4-ish Hit Points a second, the regen is pretty fast.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Christo on January 19, 2012, 07:24:13 pm
Quote from: dontgothere on January 19, 2012, 10:50:18 am
sorry but, for the lulz:

10 powerthrow, balanced jarids (77p damage)

(click to show/hide)

Very bad attempt at trying to cut off that it's rageball.

Try harder next time.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on January 19, 2012, 10:34:17 pm
Quote from: Christo on January 19, 2012, 07:24:13 pm
Very bad attempt at trying to cut off that it's rageball.

Try harder next time.

Very bad that you can't read, he said he didn't know rageball has health regen

Try reading harder next time.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Gristle on January 20, 2012, 09:25:50 am
This was a very shortsighted update that was thrown in before anyone could really stop and think about it.

The expensive, high-tier bows have been replaced with cheap, crappy, bows with greater rate of fire. If more headshots are happening, it's largely based on the overall increase in arrow spam. Surely this was not the desired result?

Masterwork Arbalest with Masterwork Steel Bolts (100 pierce damage before considering range, weather, etc) now requires multiple hits to a person in simple peasant gear. 2 shots just to kill a peasant with the slowest weapon in the game, and I only get 13 bolts.

Horse Archery is broken.

Throwing is broken. Again.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Arrowblood on January 20, 2012, 11:12:23 am
The most expensive ranged weapons and ammo should 1hit peoply in lowarmor if they are mw. u can 1 hit every lowarmor with unloomed swords and enough ps.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Zerran on January 20, 2012, 11:18:20 am
Since the update I don't even bother to worry about ranged, even in lamellar. Prepatch I really had to avoid being in the firing zone, now it really doesn't matter. Used to be 1 body hit even from a weaker hit would take half my health, sometimes more. Now it's maybe 15-20% at most, so getting hit 1-2 times is no big deal. As nice as it is to be able to focus on melee, the sense of danger has really dropped.  :|

Quote from: Deutschritter on January 20, 2012, 11:12:23 am
The most expensive ranged weapons and ammo should 1hit peoply in lowarmor if they are mw. u can 1 hit every lowarmor with unloomed swords and enough ps.

This would not be good, however. Opposite end of the spectrum is just as bad. getting killed in 2 hits is fine, 1 hit is BAD. With a sword you have to get right up next to your opponent to kill them, at which range anyone can defend against it. No defence against an arrow without a shield. The balance was great pre-patch. Ranged hurt enough to be dangerous, but not so much that they couldn't be beaten with a bit of intelligence. (I assume by light armor you mean in the 30s, less than that I wouldn't even call armor) Also like to mention 1 shotting anyone wearing something higher than gambeson is difficult even with a 2 hander, unless they have a ton of PS.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on January 20, 2012, 12:34:23 pm
Quote from: Deutschritter on January 20, 2012, 11:12:23 am
The most expensive ranged weapons and ammo should 1hit peoply in lowarmor if they are mw. u can 1 hit every lowarmor with unloomed swords and enough ps.

Nah, that way ranged would be totally overpowered. We still have the advantage of fighting from distance.

But at least peasants and very light armoured people should die with one shot.

In my opinion a nerf was fine, but the way the nerf was done is too much. Less reduction would be a good idea
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Ylca on January 20, 2012, 12:44:20 pm
Ranged is a joke now, just like CRPG players wanted and yet there are still threads calling for more nerfs and people posting the 3 or 4 archers who have been playing since beta who can push out a decent score.

This mod is balanced around whine, the harder people whine the more likely a nerf to a different class will happen. CRPG will never be balanced because CRPG has next to no beta testers just young competitive people who will try to lobby every advantage they can get.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Vibe on January 20, 2012, 12:47:34 pm
The way I see it archery now has a higher skill requirement to be decent.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Gristle on January 20, 2012, 02:18:14 pm
Vibe, I don't think you're considering builds beyond walking bowmen, or the balance between the different kinds of bows. As a crossbowman, I admit to not knowing the intricacies of which bow to use when. Crossbowmen build around a specific crossbow and never need to switch. What I do know is that, if a patch made the Arbalest absolute trash and the Hunting Crossbow suddenly became the very best crossbow to use, something would clearly be imbalanced.

The game should be balanced around the average players, not the top players.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Adamar on January 20, 2012, 04:20:37 pm
Shit! I voted yes! someone revert my vote!!!
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Malaclypse on January 20, 2012, 07:30:35 pm
You know what, now that I've actually played on my "dedicated", 9 PT thrower (which still leaves enough for 3 ath, 3 wm, 9 ps, 5 if), I don't really think the ranged changed is a big deal for other people with similar dedication to their PT value. I can see how painful it might be for people who only go half the distance or attempt to build a hybrid homage to Native multiplayer, but I was topping the scoreboards with minimal effort on my throw-toon. I wasn't two-shotting TheSerge or anything, but I was killing low-medium armor wearers, and contributing to demise of those who wore plate or heirloomed armor by weakening them. Plus thrower is still fun as hell.

I can't directly speak for dedicated crossbowmen or archers. It does take more hits to kill me with ranged, but I did also always think it was ridiculous that I could be two shot by a bow user who could also run faster than I could reach them on my balanced 18/18 build. That IMO was one of the bigger problems with ranged before the changes: You could deal massive damage from a distance outside of melee, and when you got into shit, you could just run from 90% of the player base until you had enough room to turn, shoot, repeat.

The way I see the game, your reward should be based on your risk. (Light-medium) Cav is a high risk class, your speed bonus can work drastically against you, and you can easily be dehorsed amid a sea of enemies if you aren't cautious, and its rewards are high mobility, high melee range, and often, high amount of kills to deaths. Dedicated throwing is high risk; you risk running out of ammo quickly if you don't time your shots, you do not have the athletics to kite like an archer, but your projectiles are more effective than other range. Infantry are medium-high risk; you can basically choose your level of risk reward based on your melee specialization, but for the most part, you are risking it all in every confrontation, because your class necessitates that you be able to touch your enemy (meaning he is also able to touch you given the effort). Wearing more armor, using more IF can lower your risk. Crossbowman are medium risk with similar reward; you trade off specialization for a better shot and some melee capability- still, you have high athletics, and can run out of danger.

Archers have the lowest risk pre-change. They could get on a roof, destroy the ladder, be only vulnerable to range. Archers like Aderyn would two shot me 95% of the time, and despite all that power, I could never catch them without the coordination of one or (usually) more teammates, unless I were to invest in more athletics, which would probably mean a one shot death due to sacrifice of IF. That seemed like a very unbalanced risk to reward situation. Only being able to be caught by cavalry, high agility characters, or maybe people in cloth with moderate athletics (who have to trade off survivability just to catch an archer who will probably turn and shoot them anyhow), while still hitting like a Mack Truck is totally ridiculous.

Personally, I'm fond of not getting two shot by people I'll never be able to engage if they are aware of me, though I will admit that for Archery, and especially for Crossbows, at least, the percentage damage reduction is probably too far. At least Archery still has the benefit of being able to knock and fire a projectile faster, as well as a generally increased stack size; Crossbows not only suffer the body/foot damage changes, but the added disadvantage over archery from rain, as well as their painfully slow reload time.

Sorry for wall-o-text. Got sucked in, just my opinion, etc.

Anyhow, I voted 2. I would be for some tweaking. An overall lowering of the reduction percentage, and with less reduction for Crossbows over Archery.
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Nightingale on January 22, 2012, 01:50:54 pm
I think ( this is My opinion) Throwing needs to be Buffed in damage to get it closer to the damage it was doing be4 the patch:

Archery is a bit off maybe changing the % some would be good enough for them
 
And My masterwork arbalest Shouldn't have to shoot a Naked peasant 2 times... I am okay with shooting Medium armored ppl 3 times i am fine with shooting light armored ppl 3 times But Tanks Plate armor... 7 shots... Really... i only have 12 bolts. come on noww... lets be more realistic please,

Changing the %  damage reduction,buffing some of the Higher Tier throwing weapons Like Jarids Throwing spears and Lances, Buffing the damage on Rus bow and Long bow, and Buffing the damage on Heavy crossbow and Arbalest Should fix all the problems. the 1 wpf normal crossbow users would still feel the effects of the Nerf  the spammy bows would feel effects of the nerf, and reward the Pure build throwing and Crossbow users and Archers.

AGAIN  MY Opinion, Make Most of the Upper Tier 2 handed weapons and Pole arms make them 3 slots. Main point to back this up is How offend do you guys see a 2 hander/ pole arm pull out a 2 slot weapon as back up other then the Crossbow/bolt combo so you would Completely remove the 1 wpf crossbow user if you just added some slot usage on those strong polearms/2 handers.

Please fix my crossbow ;( ill play on stf's till you do something playing with xbow is just so ineffective

and I agree with most of Mala's post ;P
Title: Re: Poll: Ranged Nerf in Last Patch
Post by: Aseldo on January 25, 2012, 12:12:49 am
I'm forced to aim for head because it takes me 8+ arrows to kill somebody in mail or higher armor