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cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Game Balance Discussion => Topic started by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on March 09, 2012, 02:20:27 pm

Title: Bow intern balance
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on March 09, 2012, 02:20:27 pm

Are there any numbers about how many people get killed by which type of bow?^^

Cause what I see currently on servers are people only shooting with rusbows or hornbows, often with stuff like 9 powerdraw and still being very fast and accurate whereas even people who have used the longbow now switched to the others.

Is there any balance regarding longbow going to be done in the near future?

Just want anwers from devs please, no stupid trolling or whatever. Paul often shows nice numbers, maybe he has some about that one, too^^

Title: Re: Bow intern balance
Post by: Rumblood on March 09, 2012, 02:43:40 pm

http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,27409.0.html (http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,27409.0.html)

Browse moar!~

BTW, an archer with 9 PD and anything over a Nomad bow will have a reticule useless for anything other than close range spam and they only get 2 shots at best, 1 shot with the Long Bow.

Title: Re: Bow intern balance
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on March 09, 2012, 03:09:29 pm

With rusbow and especially hornbow you are still quite accurate with it at lvl 30 :/

Thanks for the link :)  I never checked that thread cause I thought it's something different.

Quote from: cmpxchg8b on March 05, 2012, 03:12:14 pm

(click to show/hide)

Bow
---
Rus Bow             2,223,311  34.38%
Horn Bow            1,508,637  23.33%
Horn Bow (mounted)  1,073,192  16.60%
Long Bow            878,660    13.59%

So, stats show that rusbow gets most kills among all bows, more than 10% more than hornbow and more than 20% more than longbow!

Why do people use rusbow mostly? Cause it still is the most powerful bow and always has been. I don't want to see longbow on top of that list, not even on 2nd place. All I want is that some balancing among the bows gets done so that longbow gets a bit more viable.
As stats show even horsearchers are above longbow...althought the amount of horsearchers on servers isn't that big.

Title: Re: Bow intern balance
Post by: Rumblood on March 09, 2012, 04:10:10 pm

Quote from: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on March 09, 2012, 03:09:29 pm

With rusbow and especially hornbow you are still quite accurate with it at lvl 30 :/

Character level has nothing to do with how accurate you are. Do you play?   :P

Title: Re: Bow intern balance
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on March 09, 2012, 04:27:34 pm

You know how many points you can spend in archery without skilling weaponmaster do you?

Title: Re: Bow intern balance
Post by: MrShine on March 09, 2012, 04:43:46 pm

Quote from: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on March 09, 2012, 04:27:34 pm

You know how many points you can spend in archery without skilling weaponmaster do you?

You know that power draw gives a wpf penalty, don't you?

I also caution you from drawing conclusions based on those numbers... just because something is underused doesn't mean it's necessarily underpowered.

Title: Re: Bow intern balance
Post by: Rumblood on March 09, 2012, 04:45:36 pm

Quote from: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on March 09, 2012, 04:27:34 pm

You know how many points you can spend in archery without skilling weaponmaster do you?

While my official gen is 14, with the gens we lost over a couple patches last year, it's more like gen 20, with around 15 of those gens being archer with various builds from STR to balanced to Agi.

I know exactly what it is like using every bow at various WPF levels with the major builds possible in this game because I have played through over a dozen generations, a few of them up to lvl 33 before retirement.

Title: Re: Bow intern balance
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on March 09, 2012, 04:47:26 pm

Well it seems longbow is not attractive for most people anymore. Which is probably cause it's weaker than other bows. I even saw people with rusbow now who always used longbow before.

and the wpf penalty isn't that big on a hornbow

Title: Re: Bow intern balance
Post by: Rumblood on March 09, 2012, 05:54:22 pm

The Tatar bow should have its missile speed reduced by 3, the Horn Bow missile speed reduced by 2, and the LongBow should have its missile speed increased to 42-45 depending upon testing. That will give it its niche.

This will address a number of complaints around bows.

1:Because missile speed determines the arc the arrow will take, increasing the missile speed will increase the accuracy of an archer over Long ranges without increasing accuracy at shorter ranges.

2: Decreasing the missile speed for the more accurate bows will take away some of the laser pointer accuracy at short distances.

Here are the changes in playstyle this will open:

Slow missile speed bows: These bows will gain more of an arc like they used to do. The advantages gained by the slower missile speed DOES outweigh the loss of the damage and accuracy when in the hands of a skilled archer.

• Arc allows you to shoot over objects. That means that I can kill xbows trying to load on the OTHER side of a rooftop. Most of those shots land on their head due to the arc for greater damage. It also allows you to shoot cavalry after they have passed behind a hill. It also allows an archer to stand behind their infantry on a bridge map and arc into the enemy. (Yes, I did all this regularly and on purpose with the slower missile speed)
• Decreased missile speed means less damage per normal shot. This will allow unarmoured cavalry to live through another shot from the hyper accurate small bows for anything from the side or behind, but will SIGNIFICANTLY increase the damage done against charging horses. Means less nerf lobby for ranged, and means an accurate archer who headshots a charging horse will no longer watch in amazement as it continues on and they die to a lance.

Fast missile speed bows: These bows will have nearly a straight line for their arc. The advantages are fairly obvious:

• Due to no drop in the arrow flight path, this will make an archer much more accurate over a longer distance. Because the reticule isn't affected, they are no better at aiming, but the arrow will land in the area to where it is launched.
• Due the the increase in missile speed, incoming infantry within a close range will no longer be able to dodge after the arrow is launched. It will be too fast and they wont have enough time to react.

Likely people will have a problem with advantage number 2 for obvious reasons, but we all know that the excessively long draw time on the Long Bow is the balancing factor. So stay back far enough until the Long Bow shoots, then rush in before he load again and you are in the "No react zone".

If they leave everything else alone, and make these changes, I think that most of the player base will appreciate the difference it will make in archery. You can see the clearly defined roles for each that it will create.

Title: Re: Bow intern balance
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on March 09, 2012, 06:58:37 pm

I would love to see some testing on your proposed changes. Might be interesting :)

But I would still love to see something done about rusbow, like maybe 1 or 2 points drawspeed less. It's almost as fast as hornbow, but has much more dmg and can shott as far as longbow.


Btw, has there been any change in the missile speed lately or did something change automatically after implementing new missile textures? Cause I have the feeling that my longbow shots drop earlier now :/  Maybe it's just a feeling cause I haven't played my archer much during the last time