cRPG
cRPG => General Discussion => Topic started by: SeQuel on July 31, 2012, 05:36:20 am
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Creating this topic mainly to have a discussion on how people feel about Heavy Armor and Agility.
Recently I've been trying an Agility build in Battle, I enjoy it due to the maneuverability of it and being able to pump more WPF so I can use crossbows. However when it comes to Strategus I absolutely hate it.
Here is why
- Agility is a lot about maneuverability but in Strategus at it's current state everyone and their mother has plate armor. Lets take the example of todays TKoV fight against Hospitallers. My current build is 15/24 so I have only 5 power strike. Now 5 power strike BARELY gets through plate and if it doesn't glance it does little damage. This requires me to hit an opponent minimum 3 times if using a morning star or 4-5 with a sword assuming it's someone who has pumped STR. Meanwhile any STR opponents can easily 1 shot me since I don't pump Iron Flesh. Now you could argue well you're agility use your maneuverability expect the fact that MOST armies don't even have light armor since Strategus COMPLETELY REVOLVES AROUND HEAVY ARMOR late game.
Using heavy armor on a agility hinders me and what agility is all about. This only promotes STR crutchers and this this point in strategus Agility is useless. I'm not quite sure how you could balance this since Heavy Armor is suppose to be late game but since Strategus is such a big deal/thing this can scare of people who enjoy Agility because they want to do good in Strategus. One of my thoughts were to limit the amount of heavy armor you could bring to a battle.
I would love to hear what other agility players think of how Strategus is for them. For me it's using heavy armor so I can survive the arrows and sometimes survive 2 hits from a STR user but because of this it completely ruins my Athletics due to having to wear the heavy armor. I shouldn't have to go STR build in order to compete.
TL;DR - Read it if you're interested if you're to busy come back to it later, if not interested then this thread isn't for you.
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I dont think everyone is supposed to be in full plate, but since chadz reduced all the item prices so late into strat, money is almost worthless and everyone is in full plate. Makes me miss Strat 2.0, or even mid strat 3.0 fights ( the few that happened) back when everyone was in heraldic chainmail, and light infantry was still viable. Back when we fought alongside the FCC in strat 2.0, it seems we had alot more light infantry, and it worked incredibly well. Now, not so much.
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Yup.
After the crying of equipment prices; heavy armour is now the standard infantry gear.
I find that sad.
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Strategus COMPLETELY REVOLVES AROUND HEAVY ARMOR late game.
Yeah man. I think that even late game, Plate Armor should be pretty rare, with Leather based armors being the most witnessed on the battlefield. You could probably make a realism argument here, too, if you wanted; armies outfitted with leather would be less expensive, easier to produce in a decent amount of time and easier as an armor to carry on the march. Of course in that same argument Chain would be more expensive and take longer to make than plate. In either case, for balance in the game, Chain and Leather really should be the most witnessed on the field.
That fact is that agility needs a lot of love, too. Strength gets damage, rad, it should get damage. Agility gets mobility, that's also a good fit. But strength also gets endurance, extra health and the ability to wear greater armor. This really shouldn't be the case, unless agility is also going to get either an endurance or damage benefit out of it.
Perhaps the new WPF curve and the way Weapon Master will work will allow prof high enough to more drastically alter damage, which would help to better balance Strength and Agi. Agility gets mobility passively and through Athletics with most damage through WM; Strength gets damage through PS with protection through IF and passively. That could work nicely.
15/27 was a really fun build in regular play, but in Strategus it just wasn't viable against a horde of plate, even with picks or maces. 18/24 may not be much better, but here's hoping. In most fights I also have to consistently go above the armor I feel comfortable wearing with athletics. It's not especially fun. My only major grievance with this module is the armor levels, and I know a lot of the dudes who are still just playing Native or other mods feel the same way. The real disparity between strength and agility only comes with heavy armor.
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I completely agree.... 2,000 man armies in full plate should cost alot more than what it does cost.
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To be fair, Plate will pop up when factions go for long times without severe conflict. Regardless, Agility does need a lot of love.
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Not knowing exactly how different armor attributes are assigned I have no idea if this is possible, but at least for me the armor progression has always been too linear for me. Different armor types were made to protect the wearer from different types of attacks, ex slash, thrust, ranged ect. I wont dispute the fact that the medieval tank wearing essentially all the types layered over one another shoulder take a beating but perhaps making the progression of armor less about cloth to leather to chain to plate could allow other builds to still receive special resistances. I'm thinking along the lines of partial plate were it may just be chest, with bracers or some variation. With some thing like it would have larger gaps thus less body armor but allow for more mobility and naturally be lighter and could give you something like more glances.
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Also if anyone "-" my post I'm fine with that but I'd prefer you give a reason why.
*Cough* Gricks *Cough*
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To be fair, Plate will pop up when factions go for long times without severe conflict. Regardless, Agility does need a lot of love.
Tears how are you so fucking wise Man?? 8-)
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http://forum.meleegaming.com/suggestions-corner/repair-castles-after-sieges/msg563468/#msg563468
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I have an agility 2h build with not a lot of iron flesh. I wore plate for the start of the battle, and then used the heraldic later and I still had positive KD at the end. Granted, my KD has been less consistent from when I was 27/12 or 30/9 before, but you can still do well with agi heavy builds. look at Miley, sure Miley is level 35 or near to it, but they still are very agi heavy and do well in strat
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I have an agility 2h build with not a lot of iron flesh. I wore plate for the start of the battle, and then used the heraldic later and I still had positive KD at the end. Granted, my KD has been less consistent from when I was 27/12 or 30/9 before, but you can still do well with agi heavy builds. look at Miley, sure Miley is level 35 or near to it, but they still are very agi heavy and do well in strat
miley is not an agi build
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Yah, I don't think Miley is an Agility build but I may be wrong.
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Yah, I don't think Miley is an Agility build but I may be wrong.
Pretty sure miley is some sort of variation of 18/21 at level 35.
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People are fast in heavy armor as agi specs. Heavy armor with agi is a very good build. I definitely don't think it is useless. And I definitely don't think it promotes str crutchers as much as you imply. I think the STR crutchers comes from the imbalance of str vs agi more so than it does because of plate in strat. I do agree that plate shouldn't be as prevalent in strat, but not because it hinders agi builds like you say.
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Everyone knows ultimate Strat Build is 42/3,
14 Powerstrike.
Duh.
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I agree with you that strength builds are more powerful in strat, but in what way?
Strength builds are the ultimate 1-shotters and kill stealers! They also work better in formation than agi builds do.
Since there's a lot of team wounding, arrows and such, str builds in full plate tend to live longer in these massive 70 on 70 melee encounters. You also can survive a nice lance hit that others might not. When you have 3 str guys focusing you swinging 3 different directions, you can't block all three at once, and then some tool (sometimes me :D) comes up behind you with a +3 morningstar and ruins your day.
On the other hand there's things I did in that strat battle that heavy str builds couldn't.
I wasted a lot of cav's time going far left. They would chase me and I was able to avoid a lot of lances until PhantomZero started chasing me (he's a very accurate coucher). I was able to get to the enemy spawn about five times, and I killed at least one person, usually more, every time. My KD wasn't as high as some of the str build guys like Goretooth or some of the shielders, but I was keeping cav occupied, getting kills, keeping the guys at their flag on their toes. I was useful in more ways than what my KD showed.
But like I said, I think that STR builds are able to deal out more damage quickly, killing people faster which reduces the amount of damage they're able to do. They're able to survive lances that other build would not, enabling them to keep fighting. They can take more arrows, more bolts, and more melee hits, which occupies the enemy for longer and also gives them more time to whack another fool on the head with a morningstar.
Get into a one on one fight as a heavy STR build vs an agi build like me, and you might not win, but that's not what strat is about in most cases. It's about these huge head on infantry charges, battles of attrition involving cavalry in field battles, tons of archers in any case... and agi builds like me will always struggle under these circumstances, but str builds are built for them.
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People are fast in heavy armor as agi specs. Heavy armor with agi is a very good build. I definitely don't think it is useless. And I definitely don't think it promotes str crutchers as much as you imply. I think the STR crutchers comes from the imbalance of str vs agi more so than it does because of plate in strat. I do agree that plate shouldn't be as prevalent in strat, but not because it hinders agi builds like you say.
Very fast? I disagree, heavy armor weighs you down quite a fair bit. My point is that in battle it's fine because Agility builds excel in 1v1's and use their speed to their advantage. However in Strategus you have teamwork so it's a lot harder to have 1v1's and it's a lot harder to flank. Topping all of that off with the weight of the gear you're not getting the full effects of athletics which plays such a huge role in your build.
How does it not promote Str crutchers? I strongly believe that people don't want to go agility builds because it's not as good as STR when it comes to Strategus. Why should I have to wear plate to survive 2-3 hits at most but be weighed down losing my speed advantage and then dealing no damage due to all of the heavy armor in strategus currently because I have such little power strike.
I agree with you that strength builds are more powerful in strat, but in what way?
Strength builds are the ultimate 1-shotters and kill stealers! They also work better in formation than agi builds do.
Since there's a lot of team wounding, arrows and such, str builds in full plate tend to live longer in these massive 70 on 70 melee encounters. You also can survive a nice lance hit that others might not. When you have 3 str guys focusing you swinging 3 different directions, you can't block all three at once, and then some tool (sometimes me :D) comes up behind you with a +3 morningstar and ruins your day.
On the other hand there's things I did in that strat battle that heavy str builds couldn't.
I wasted a lot of cav's time going far left. They would chase me and I was able to avoid a lot of lances until PhantomZero started chasing me (he's a very accurate coucher). I was able to get to the enemy spawn about five times, and I killed at least one person, usually more, every time. My KD wasn't as high as some of the str build guys like Goretooth or some of the shielders, but I was keeping cav occupied, getting kills, keeping the guys at their flag on their toes. I was useful in more ways than what my KD showed.
Edit - Just saw your response Tugboat
Sure, that is a valid argument but when I was TKoV we were SPECIFICALLY told to stay together and not to wander. Since it was their battle and their command I wasent going to disobey.
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Have you been on NA server any time recently? The majority is str plate anyways. Armor is too powerful and STR is too powerful. I don't think this is a strat issue.
And I didn't mean agi builds were very fast in plate, I just don't think plate weighs people down enough. Again, I agree with you that plate shouldn't be as easily obtained as it is in its current state, but not for your reasons. I just don't think that will change people's builds. STR will be king in team fights because of the damage output and how much more damage you can take regardless of what armor you are wearing. Compared to an equally armored agi build in a team fight, str wins every time (plate or not).
I just think the two issues (plate being cheap/agi v str) don't have as much of a correlation as you believe.
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Knocks down everything that troubles me SeQuel, great post. I'm sitting here always thinking...I feel fine in battle, but in Strategus, I feel like a worthless peasant when facing an army of Milanese Plates. The army structure and formation in Strat is usually very tight knit and with constant spawning, makes flanking very difficult.
When I'm debating what I should do to be able to excel in Strat battles, the only thing that really comes to mind is to either be an archer or be a 10 PS hulk. Earlier in tonight's fight, I still had a pretty bad time trying to get a clean hit off the Milanese plates with 6 PS and a MW LS.
The problem was the supporting pikes/spears that would force me to maneuver into an awkward position in which my slashes wouldn't have the momentum to completely pierce the armor without me getting hit. Usually it ends up being a weapon bounce and stun causing me to die.
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The only problem I ever had with 15 str was that I couldn't wear the 16 str requirement milanese plate and was forced to use a common shirt basically at one point. Killing people isn't hard, with 8 athletics you just abuse the hell out of speed bonus. Now, fighting on the walls in cramped fights where teamhits are flying left and right and you can't maneuver because this idiot behind you has his shield raised and insists on humping your back... It pays to have Strength.
Now, agi could use a buff. A very...very tiny buff. If they increase WM damage too much or something along those lines, they would need to nerf speed bonus or else agi would be the next fotm and be overpowered as hell. As it stands, with 6 athletics I can quadruple the amount of damage I do in a single hit just by running at you. I've even gone as far as 1 shotting my 24/12 shield friend. (He was wearing mail armor instead of his usual +3 lamellar though)
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Have you been on NA server any time recently? The majority is str plate anyways. Armor is too powerful and STR is too powerful. I don't think this is a strat issue.
And I didn't mean agi builds were very fast in plate, I just don't think plate weighs people down enough. Again, I agree with you that plate shouldn't be as easily obtained as it is in its current state, but not for your reasons. I just don't think that will change people's builds. STR will be king in team fights because of the damage output and how much more damage you can take regardless of what armor you are wearing. Compared to an equally armored agi build in a team fight, str wins every time (plate or not).
I just think the two issues (plate being cheap/agi v str) don't have as much of a correlation as you believe.
I don't think you should be comparing battle to strategus to be honest. It's a lot easier to deal with people in plate in battle then in strategus. As I've previously said dealing with someone in battle who is in plate you can generally get a 1v1 and you get to choose what you're wearing, you also get to choose whether or not you can run or not. In strategus you get and you work with it, if you're told to charge and clash you do just that. In battle I wear light armor since it highlights my build I don't use plate that weights me down.
If they made armor to be a lot harder to obtain in strategus then it wouldn't be such a problem but the fact that hospitaller for example can field a 2k army with full plate is ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if DRZ can field quadruple that.
As for people being warded off due to it being a lot weaker in strategus I'm seriously debating it and I've spoke with others on steam who agree with me. Why play a class that's at a disadvantage? Now if we even want to go deeper where people CARE about their performance then they won't play builds they enjoy but builds they do well with. If agility is at a constant disadvantage that will tend to ward off people like that. My performance is shit, but luckily people still hire my horrible ass. I am 100% confident if I were to respec as STR I would do at least 50% better.
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The army structure and formation in Strat is usually very tight knit and with constant spawning, makes flanking very difficult.
That is exactly one of my points, in strategus flanking is difficult and so is using your speed to your advantage, on top of all of that you can't roam or do your own thing like in battle because you need to follow orders.
The only problem I ever had with 15 str was that I couldn't wear the 16 str requirement milanese plate and was forced to use a common shirt basically at one point. Killing people isn't hard, with 8 athletics you just abuse the hell out of speed bonus. Now, fighting on the walls in cramped fights where teamhits are flying left and right and you can't maneuver because this idiot behind you has his shield raised and insists on humping your back... It pays to have Strength.
That is another point I have not brought up but you raise a good one of the sieges being really cramped for agility to fully utilize it's build.
As for abusing the hell out of speed is hard when both armies are using full plate. Now if plate were harder to get I think agility would have a much better place in Strategus.
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Basically what ToD said.
I think rather than make equipment hard to purchase, there needs to be more reason for people to fight each other. No matter how expensive equipment is, if you have enough time you can outfit an army in plate. Plus, sitting around just crafting stuff without fighting is boring.
So, like I said, there needs to be some sort of REASON for people to go out and fight each other regularly, and not just sit around crafting plate.
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Basically what ToD said.
I think rather than make equipment hard to purchase, there needs to be more reason for people to fight each other. No matter how expensive equipment is, if you have enough time you can outfit an army in plate. Plus, sitting around just crafting stuff without fighting is boring.
So, like I said, there needs to be some sort of REASON for people to go out and fight each other regularly, and not just sit around crafting plate.
Agreed, another good idea.
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That is exactly one of my points, in strategus flanking is difficult and so is using your speed to your advantage, on top of all of that you can't roam or do your own thing like in battle because you need to follow orders.
This is false, the Superior Goon Tactics handbook regularly calls upon flanking using infantry. With the dissolution of LLJK this and more has been lost to time. However I will give you a tip, it is not a flank if the entire army goes to one side or the other, such is the case that happened today. And roaming around by yourself in a strategus battle is a good way to get picked off by cavalry.
Hospitallers had a good opportunity in which they managed to knock down all the flags, but they just couldn't keep them down. The siege towers were a nice touch and really helped despite it being a field battle, though having them bug out and be invulnerable was kind of shitty.
It has been just about a year, I would be shocked if the hospitaller had not been able been able to equip 10,000 soldiers with champ milanese plate. Sure in the long run you could probably outproduce/attrit them, but few of these battles take places in the field, meaning when you lose a battle you lose your production.
I had a few thoughts that would prevent such turtling, such as specific strategus xp that you could apply to command skills and such, like reduced troop upkeep or being able to bring more soldiers to the fight. In this manner factions that fought regularly would have an advantage over the hoarders to balance the equipment difference. A sort of "army tradition" if you will that might need to be maintained. Even if allied factions just fought each other for shits and giggles on the field to maintain army tradition it would still cost troops and equipment.
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Get your armies to carry a selection of +3 agility armor for you.
Also, I suspect that 2000 modestly armored troops would beat 1000 plate troops and cost less. Milanese costs 3x as much as a Heavy Kuyak but certainly isn't 3x as good. If you really wanted to defend a castle, you should be able to see the attack coming and run out there and meet them in the field with a couple of medium armor armies just to thin them out. Then agility builds would be a lot more useful, not only for having lighter armor to fight in but for being in an open field.
Basically I think the problem is less to do with "omg plate everywhere" and more to do with a lack of strategy being employed by people finding themselves under attack by plate.
Troop tickets are cheap. Plate is expensive. Throw some lower cost armies at them.
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but few of these battles take places in the field, meaning when you lose a battle you lose your production.
Yeah but whose fault is that. These 1000 troop armies aren't exactly fast. You should generally see them coming. You could also get people to stand outside somewhere as pickets and check strat now and then for an even greater change of seeing them coming.
There's no reason so many of these battles should take place in a fief. A look at KDR history suggests there's really not much inherent advantage to fighting from the inside of a castle or town. (Which does bring up the thought that maybe there should be more practical anti-siege weapons in the game. Where's our boiling oil or ballistas or big rocks or things to shove away ladders, etc. If cRPG were real life, nobody would build castles because there's no real advantage to them.)
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Light infantry is still viable it's just not being used properly.
Don't blame the game for the (following comment isn't directed at any individual) commanders failure to use you effectively.
If your a fast hybrid xbow player you should be being deployed with say Cannary and malaclypse to push around the side and harass the enemy to open them up and drag off infantry.
With 2 long spears and an xbow you could sweep around back and drop flags in a field battle or bum rush healing tents and weapons racks in siege.
Sure your not going to bring down a tin can but you have options. Options that aren't called on very often in battles but that's a whole other issue.
I was in a battle today and the Templars had +3 Blue Gambisons for the archers and light infantry. Have a about 20-25% of your tickets glad in light armour is always a good idea and shouldn't be over looked. A couple of heavy hitting 2h hanging in the back of a shield wall able to leap out and fuck shit up is worth it alone.
IMO gear cost is fine, plate ain't all it's cracked up to be, you just need the weapons to stop it.
1h swords are pointless, you need maces and picks. Oh and arbs, lots of arbs.
Yeah but whose fault is that. These 1000 troop armies aren't exactly fast. You should generally see them coming. You could also get people to stand outside somewhere as pickets and check strat now and then for an even greater change of seeing them coming.
There's no reason so many of these battles should take place in a fief. A look at KDR history suggests there's really not much inherent advantage to fighting from the inside of a castle or town. (Which does bring up the thought that maybe there should be more practical anti-siege weapons in the game. Where's our boiling oil or ballistas or big rocks or things to shove away ladders, etc. If cRPG were real life, nobody would build castles because there's no real advantage to them.)
Completely agree. One thing that would fix this is being able to build catapults on top of buildings. ATM the thing falls through and hits the ground but is then stuck in a building and is useless.
As far as smashing ladders goes Pikes are the way to go.
At the TKoV vs Hate castle siege the other day we had 4 guys running around with long spears smashing all the ladders, it worked a treat. Really need 8-12PS dudes with pikes doing it, blitz the ladders quick smart. We got a 2+ to 1 KD at that one. We had lots of healing tents up and kept people pumping back and forth.
The trick seems to be having a good siege team running around keeping the weapons racks and healing tents up and running about poking ladders and not actually fighting on the walls but just managing all the shit and keeping the commander aware of where the attackers are moving to place ladders.
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this topic really doesnt consider "battles" compared to sieges.
I've played in some strat field battles were plate monkies could not catch the agi guy constantly destroying their siege equipment and archers.
every 2 minutes people in teamspeak would be bitching and screaming "HERE HE COMES AGAIN, FUCK PROTECT ME GOD DAMIT HES ATTACKING ALL THE ARCHERS AGAIN, GAAAAAAA, U ASSHOLES SUCK!!!"
agi in siege stuck on a wall is pretty bad.
location, location, location
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Power builds for obvious reasons have in many cases a significant advantage, but from my point of view this is not the key problem here and I don't want talk about balance.
I'm interested how come some factions have gold for such heavy armors for most of their units, since they have so small amount of caravans and shity short trade routes. Indeed amazingly!
My faction is very rich and has a perfectly organized economy, trade and logistics (cheating and exploiting with over 1000 CD keys), nevertheless this is not possible for us to produce such expensive equipment because in our case it is absolutely impossible to spend money so lavishly, but some factions, despite losing wars and territory, still have tons of gold for best heavy equipment.
Price reduction does not explain anything, because I'm not talking about neutral locations and I have a concrete point of reference.
God wills it again? Don't even try to make us fools because we all have eyes and see what's going on. Before you write a lie, think about this for a while, because here are people who can verify a lot of different things...
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Get your armies to carry a selection of +3 agility armor for you.
Also, I suspect that 2000 modestly armored troops would beat 1000 plate troops and cost less. Milanese costs 3x as much as a Heavy Kuyak but certainly isn't 3x as good. If you really wanted to defend a castle, you should be able to see the attack coming and run out there and meet them in the field with a couple of medium armor armies just to thin them out. Then agility builds would be a lot more useful, not only for having lighter armor to fight in but for being in an open field.
This
Spam out light-medium armor, give people decent armor piercing weps and attack plate armies in the open. Lots more cost effective.
Plate armies do best in cities and castles where there's no room for agility anyways, not so hot in open fields. In that attack on the village that Hospi got flag capped, I was using their plate and doing terrible, even a village is wide open compared to a castle and I was suffering cuz I had no speed at all to get in swings when a battle lines formed in the open village streets and squares, and lots of guys were using longer weapons.
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Power builds for obvious reasons have in many cases a significant advantage, but from my point of view this is not the key problem here and I don't want talk about balance.
I'm interested how come some factions have gold for such heavy armors for most of their units, since they have so small amount of caravans and shity short trade routes. Indeed amazingly!
My faction is very rich and has a perfectly organized economy, trade and logistics (cheating and exploiting with over 1000 CD keys), nevertheless this is not possible for us to produce such expensive equipment because in our case it is absolutely impossible to spend money so lavishly, but some factions, despite losing wars and territory, still have tons of gold for best heavy equipment.
Price reduction does not explain anything, because I'm not talking about neutral locations and I have a concrete point of reference.
God wills it again? Don't even try to make us fools because we all have eyes and see what's going on. Before you write a lie, think about this for a while, because here are people who can verify a lot of different things...
DRZ freefarmed all Strat long + castle and city capping gold up until they invaded NA from what I saw, several months ago, and they had every army decked out in Lordly Druzhina Plate with top tier MW weapons and champion heavy horses for what seemed like at least 20,000 troops. This was before the crafting price reduction. Note I quit strat before they did that so I'm not sure how high the reduction was.
Hospitallers have free farmed Strat twice as long, but once we rallied clans to fight at them during the Red Vs Green war we all had pretty similar gear, they had generally higher tier armor and weapons then LLJK, Chaos, TKoV, etc but not that silly. All we were able to afford in LLJK on our relatively close and infrequent trade runs were Lordly Cavalry Robes and whatever low/mid tier weapons we could scrounge up, with upkeep for 8k troops being a real bitch. At that point in time due to our general inactivity and lack of organization a reduction in crafting prices certainly would've helped a bunch, but our core reason for generally low equipment values was an unoptimized economy.
Now it seems due to the horrible stagnation/infrequency of PvP combat in strat, and the high gold returns in capping AI castles and towns (often with very suspect means), plus whatever this crafting reduction was, Strategus is pretty much at a disgusting state. Even medium sized clans, given enough "peace and prosperity" which is like 10 fucking months now probably except for 1-2 weeks of war in the middle there, are decked out in at least medium-heavy lordly armor. Clans that have been especially productive have endless supplies of champion heavy cav and literally, lordly plate armor, + masterwork danishes, glaives, poleaxes, elite scimis, etc etc.
On top of this, tons of players are Strength builds and this leads to people taking 8 or more hits on average to kill. The absolute worst is seeing endless amounts of players that are in full plate, with probable 24/15 builds, riding champion heavy horses with mw heavy lances. Once you dismount these guys, it turns into a 5vs1 of this idiot soaking nearly 10 or more hits, with tons of friendly fire from the mix of EU, NA, good and bad players, along with swarms of heavy cav continuously trying to lance you in the back.
Frankly, the recent Strategus battles I've participated in have been less then enjoyable. To me, they are starting to embody everything that turns me off about the mod. The effectiveness of strength builds, lordly heavy armor values, cav/melee hybrids, and the simply awful and stagnant politics of the clans that play Strategus.
Strat 2.0 never got full plate until the end of it, and that was only because of the hilarious bug where upkeep made you gain gold and all that other nonsense. On top of that, most clans seemed more interested in participating, war was abundant, EU and NA wasn't divided, and buying/outfitting armies wasn't some colossal pain in the ass. Strat 3.0's early game was dominated by MW Rus Bows 1 shotting people in peasant gear, now it appears to be dominated by full plate and endless heavy cav, all +3, endlessly griefing me by taking so long to kill and slaughtering my teammates.
Though the lack of cav awareness I see in all of these battles isn't gear related, just skill and it's depressing : \ Probably 1/4 of the deaths on my team it seems have been teammates walking from spawn to battle and being couched from behind, the side, sometimes even directly ahead, and it makes me rage a bit. Holy shit just swivel around with your "look" key whenever you feel exposed and you will turn what is nonstop ticket drain from couches to big jukes or maybe even big turnarounds on the scrub cav player by killing him and/or horse. Get some awareness!
Anyways, just want to point out that the flaws of Strat 3.0 are so glaring its kind of painful, and respect for all the clan leaders who have put up with the BS to get to this point in the game, and its probably a good feeling to be commanding armies so decked out in gear. Just hoping the devs go forward soon (or at least reveal/beta test the changes) they have in mind for next strat to get some actual feedback from the community and try to make it the best game they can.
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Miley im pretty sure is BALANCED build, like me (21/21 @ lvl 32)
Balanced builds can do ok in this game, but I would agree that the pros/cons of going heavy STR build are way better than the pros/cons of going heavy AGI build....and more and more people are heavy STR and not even balanced anymore.
The coupling of STR and HP is one problem imho.
I think if the new WPF curve that chadz mentioned a) speeds up high WM/WPF users a bit, and b) slows down LOW WM/WPF users a bit....it will help the current situation.
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As for strat and plate everywhere...yeah its pretty unrealistic and not great for gameplay necessarily.
Not sure the answer....maybe more expensive again? or maybe there is just a soft cap? after so many sets it gets more expensive...I dont know .
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It's a siege. DRZ has been using heavy armor since they started taking AI cities. This is why strat needs a wipe. Crafting is like 1/4 of what it was to begin with, and people are still benefiting from when they had inactive c-rpg players crafting/recruiting in strategus. Now that you can't do that any more, they should wipe strat.
However, heavy armor makes sense in sieges, you're in close quarters where agility isn't a huge concern. In open field battles plate isn't as useful. You should be expecting any attacking siege armies to be heavily armored, and should probably have weapons that can fight in close quarters, and do blunt/knockdown damage (ideally) or pierce.
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Meh, doesn't bother me. I'm an agi build this gen and I wear heavy armor. It lets me move around faster than those who are str builds in heavy armor.
I think its find and I've having fun. :)
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Meh, doesn't bother me. I'm an agi build this gen and I wear heavy armor. It lets me move around faster than those who are str builds in heavy armor.
I think its find and I've having fun. :)
Well of course you still move faster than them in plate but again here is the difference.
In battle or when you wear light armor and you got 8 athletics you can actually strafe around people faster than they can turn most of the time since you're so quick. You can actually get around peoples blocks and hit them from the side if you're quick enough. However in plate you get slowed down quite a fair bit, so do they, but the difference is that they DON'T need to move quick. If you're still getting side hits on enemies white in full plate with the speed nerf then the enemy is just bad. Simple as that.
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lol i'm a str build? i better tell my 7 athletics to slow down.
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lol i'm a str build? i better tell my 7 athletics to slow down.
I don't even know how to respond to this. What are you even talking about?
This was a discussion in case you forgot.
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I don't even know how to respond to this. What are you even talking about?
This was a discussion in case you forgot.
Pretty sure goretooth's resposne was in regards to:
My KD wasn't as high as some of the str build guys like Goretooth or some of the shielders
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Ah, gotcha. Quotes are magical thing.
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Ah, gotcha. Quotes are magical thing.
So is reading the thread your posting in.
Why do str vs agi threads? use them both not bash each other. The key to a good build is balance.
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So is reading the thread your posting in.
Why do str vs agi threads? use them both not bash each other. The key to a good build is balance.
7 athletics? D: I don't even. What build are you?
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7 athletics? D: I don't even. What build are you?
My favorite thing about the KUTT guys is that they act like they don't even KNOW agility exists :mrgreen:
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My favorite thing about the KUTT guys is that they act like they don't even KNOW agility exists :mrgreen:
I'm an agi build and I'll kick your arse. :)
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I'm an agi build and I'll kick your arse. :)
How come so much surprise about 7 Athletics then?
And Im balanced (which most people consider Agi build cause they're all strength whoooarreessszz) :)
Now Tug lets not go -1'ing each other...
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@ Smoothrich - I don't understand what relation does your post to quote my message, otherwise - nice post, though I have a different opinion on this subject.
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Power builds for obvious reasons have in many cases a significant advantage, but from my point of view this is not the key problem here and I don't want talk about balance.
I'm interested how come some factions have gold for such heavy armors for most of their units, since they have so small amount of caravans and shity short trade routes. Indeed amazingly!
My faction is very rich and has a perfectly organized economy, trade and logistics (cheating and exploiting with over 1000 CD keys), nevertheless this is not possible for us to produce such expensive equipment because in our case it is absolutely impossible to spend money so lavishly, but some factions, despite losing wars and territory, still have tons of gold for best heavy equipment.
Price reduction does not explain anything, because I'm not talking about neutral locations and I have a concrete point of reference.
God wills it again? Don't even try to make us fools because we all have eyes and see what's going on. Before you write a lie, think about this for a while, because here are people who can verify a lot of different things...
Hate to say it Harpi, but you just ain't the trade demon you think you are ;D
Also don't forget you wiped ANT from the map, those guys have some serious crafting. I can pike up +3 gothic plate with bevor for only 151 gold, so I can get an army in the field with 1000 units of plate for 151000 which is about 60% of one trade run... and I'm in a 7 man clan... so yeah... not really a big deal for clans as big as Hospitaller and the Templars to knock all that money out.
And as I said before a lot of people have been sitting on fat wads of cash and the price cut has given them the impetus to inject the $$$ back into the economy and now those $$$ are trickling down in the form of DEATH! SHINNY SHINNY DEATH!
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That would be awesome if it were true. Frank, I really hope you're right, but I'm afraid the truth is different.
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That would be awesome if it were true. Frank, I really hope you're right, but I'm afraid the truth is different.
I think I am. I know that the Hospitallers spent a long time sitting around building up.
I'm not going to name names but there is a guy I consider Strat v3 MVP by about a thousand miles ahead of everyone else. He managed to pull together some where north of 1.5 million this round of strat... on his own. It's completely possible to pull enough money to keep all this plate in the field. I personally use low end mid tier armour that costs me 13 gold each with gauntlets that cost 10 gold, gives my guys about 51 armour and costs the FPF squat all to equip a rather large fighting force.
In my experience the big difference is the amount of high end pierce weapons you have. I mean I was throwing guys with Lamellar vest up ladders up ladders into tiny little gaps to get slaughtered by guys in Varangopoulos Armour with with plate mittens and some god awful heavy helmets and my boys managed to to win by 500 tickets. We used Ibirian maces, Broad One Handed Battle Axe, Military picks and morning stars and it just cut through them like they weren't there.
Chaos has black zilla probably the best morning star crafter playing strat (I would figure lemmy winks would have better crafting but I don't know) so if they got a 5 day breather and had him shit them out 24/7 then they would start causing some serious pain.
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@ Smoothrich - I don't understand what relation does your post to quote my message, otherwise - nice post, though I have a different opinion on this subject.
Mostly I started out talking about how silly gear values have inflated then went on to bitch about Strat. Though I now know that you are indeed correct in that Hospitallers uses exploits (item duping that is now fixed) to amass tons of gold and gear, which is pretty cool for them to do I guess.
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Mostly I started out talking about how silly gear values have inflated then went on to bitch about Strat. Though I now know that you are indeed correct in that Hospitallers uses exploits (item duping that is now fixed) to amass tons of gold and gear, which is pretty cool for them to do I guess.
Interesting, because I was thinking about someone else, but actually you can be right, because they are like communicating vessels. By the way, tell me how do you know about this because my view is based on hypothesis and observations only, so I have no way of proving, anyway, I'm not going to pretend to be a detective like one guy...
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Couple good points brought up I'd like to make sure don't get lost.
1) Strategus needs more incentive for people to fight. There should be a disadvantage to being peaceful with your neighbors for too long. How you do that (stick and carrot both should be used) is up to devs. I do like that they are making crafting dependent on your fief, so that's some incentive to fight for fiefs. That's a carrot, I think one "stick" could be tax inefficiency. The more fiefs you have, the more inefficient you are at taxing.
2) There needs to be anti-siege equipment for defenders in battles. Attackers have siege shields, siege towers, and catapults. The defenders should have things they can throw/dump on enemies who are climbing up ladders. This may make castles impossibly hard to take, so it would need to be carefully balanced.
3) Plate is good for sieges, but pierce, and blunt weapons (bonus for crushthrough or knockdown) are able to effectively negate plate. Not to mention a lot of the pierce and blunt weapons are short, which is ideal for sieges. You guys have to remember this version of strategus has been going on for almost a year. And lots has changed since the beginning.
One last point that Slamz brought up, that I think is a major "pro-tip" and hopefully I'm only stating the obvious, not giving people battle tactics: Why don't more people sally out and attack on the open field?
Like slamz said, it's not like you don't see these 1000, or 2000 man armies coming. They are moving SLOW. They are generally siege armies, and thus have siege equipment. Most of the time they are not built for open field battles. If you sally out a cavalry brigade and attack them (along with other things you feel are beneficial to an open field battle) you're going to catch them off guard. The siege army most likely has ladders and siege equipment, not horses and pikes.
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I feel as if heavy armor should be extremely hard to maintain and achieve late game. Maybe it's just me but I don't find battles with all plate any fun. Even at a year in it should be hard to get.
I'd like to see late game strat still be medium armor but with either -
Depending on the army size have only a certain percent of plate in a army.
or
A army full of plate but would cost a shit ton, deal quite a bit of damage but if you ended up losing it or using it poorly costing you a big loss.
Alternatively they could limit how much plate a army is allowed to have. For example every army is only allowed 30% of their equipment being plate. This in my opinion would do a few things. First it would still allow the use of plate, but not let it go overboard in people decking out whole armies. Second it gives the faction/people more money to spend on cheaper gear thus gearing more people and creating more fights/larger battles.
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I'm not going to name names but there is a guy I consider Strat v3 MVP by about a thousand miles ahead of everyone else. He managed to pull together some where north of 1.5 million this round of strat... on his own. It's completely possible to pull enough money to keep all this plate in the field. I personally use low end mid tier armour that costs me 13 gold each with gauntlets that cost 10 gold, gives my guys about 51 armour and costs the FPF squat all to equip a rather large fighting force.
I know who you mean :) good guy, nice to work with.
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Mostly I started out talking about how silly gear values have inflated then went on to bitch about Strat. Though I now know that you are indeed correct in that Hospitallers uses exploits (item duping that is now fixed) to amass tons of gold and gear, which is pretty cool for them to do I guess.
lay off the drugs.
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I know who this one man caravan is, give me 20k strat gold or I reveal your name