cRPG

cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Game Balance Discussion => Topic started by: Lactose_the_intolerant on September 10, 2012, 06:23:43 pm

Title: Cav stacking
Post by: Lactose_the_intolerant on September 10, 2012, 06:23:43 pm
Hello all.

You are not without knowing the great GK thread discussion in general discussion.
As this concerns game balance, I am opening a thread here hoping we can seriously discuss the matter

Before we start, I dont want any post such as : "lol cav is EZ mode, i had a alt once i did couch lance op bs bundle of sticksry"

And if there are any GK to post here, i wish to see them have adult responses as : "Yes true the cav stacking is bat but...." etc

if not I ask any normal person to jsut minus one to post into oblivion

Discuss!

Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Torben on September 10, 2012, 06:26:27 pm
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wee need a class balance that is prioritized just next to the clan balance.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Siiem on September 10, 2012, 06:28:11 pm
The GK are ruthlessly effective at ridiculing any weak thread they come across!
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Torben on September 10, 2012, 06:29:32 pm
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Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 10, 2012, 06:35:08 pm
Okay, although I posted enough stuff in your previous topic, here it is again:

- although cav stacking can be dealt with by teamplay and tactics, it doesn't make it better. You can't expect teamplay from the random cRPG-autowalker-lemming-Rambo-retard, the game offers no tools for tactics or issueing commands, and what if the cav team uses tactics, too?

- The same thing applies for archers. Both archers and cav have higher mobility which also means better protection, while they also have a higher flexibility in who they can engage and when. Which leads to the weird effect that the more archers and/or cav you have, the more powerful a team becomes.

- The main problem is NOT the deadlyness of cav or archers, I would even dare to say it is sub-par, but their amount is the problem. That's why any suggestion which aims towards nerfing certain stats won't solve the problem. (Although the Arab Warhorse is a bad balancing joke, I hope!)

- Implement a system which first balances the team by banner, then looks which classes the players had who were balanced by banner, and then finally fills up the remaining slots with corresponding classes. It's not that difficult...  :rolleyes:

- Change the gamemode. Battle needs to be removed, conquest implemented. Give infantry a goal which they can accomplish, like conquering and holding terrain. Currently the goal of an infantry player is: kill the enemy team by getting into melee range. Including the ATH crutching archers and the riders who sit on horses. (And I don't see those classes being limited on who they can engage...  :rolleyes: )

- Implement a commnder system which really works with random public players

- And as you are on it, change the upkeep system to another kind of equipment restriction system. You can't have a marketplace and expect players to be limited by gold.  :lol:
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Moncho on September 10, 2012, 06:37:13 pm
lol cav is EZ mode, i had a alt once i did couch lance op bs bundle of sticksry

nah seriously, posting here for a fun read later.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Torben on September 10, 2012, 06:40:15 pm
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just use the "notify" option lower right hand corner,  and bare us anything that could derail ze sread again, ja? 
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Turboflex on September 10, 2012, 06:40:41 pm
Clans should be able to banner stack, there is nothing wrong with that, it's a lot more fun to play with clanmates. Breaking up clans to balancing based on class would be terrible.

The problem is that cav is OP. Usually when it's scattered cav the randomizer generally creates 50/50 mix so it's not too bad, but when any kind of clan comes in that's over-leveraged on cav players introduces a 5-15 cav imbalance onto the field it creates a massive imbalance of overpowered players. It's not just GK but we also saw it on NA a few months ago with PRO, and now again sometimes when all of Cavaliers/BRD mounts up.

The only people who are in denial of this are self interested cav players.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Torben on September 10, 2012, 06:44:23 pm
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I do not agree.  as soon as there is not a cav stack but a ranged stack on one side,  that becomes "op" as well.

its
- high amounts of enemies that can attack without being attacked (constant pressure)
- one sided teamplay/ ts use
- class needing less skill to support higher skilled players more effectively

prioritize clan balance  just slightly above of banner balance,  and we are good. 

edit:

same amount of riding skill,  shield skill,  power draw on both sides.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Lactose_the_intolerant on September 10, 2012, 06:45:07 pm
thank you joker for posting again, but the lack of visibility of worthy arguments was such that i had to create another thread.

But i would disagree on a certain point.stacking melee on one side wont cause to much trouble to the enemy team, they can get raped by archers cav and other melees. ranged is a problem but it can be overcome with cav and good shielders. On the other hand cav....

I disagree on arab horse, i find it fine. what makes me more twitchy on the other hand is the destrier who is far to effective for 5 riding skill giving any infantry a ride on a the best all around horse, making him as effective as any other dedicated cav. This is why, imo there are so much cav. For me Destrier>arab>courser
Maybe destrier 6 riding skill?

This

- Implement a system which first balances the team by banner, then looks which classes the players had who were balanced by banner, and then finally fills up the remaining slots with corresponding classes. It's not that difficult...  :rolleyes:



Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Thomek on September 10, 2012, 06:46:04 pm
The only people who are in denial of this are self interested cav players.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Chagan_Arslan on September 10, 2012, 06:48:43 pm
The GK are ruthlessly effective at ridiculing any weak thread they come across!

true, never considered you a hard target from a horseback

pack of denbitre guys, bloody_nine, leshma, mala, bagge, jambi those are hard targets to kill as a cav
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Zlisch_The_Butcher on September 10, 2012, 06:49:52 pm
"lol cav is EZ mode, i had a alt once i did couch lance op bs bundle of sticksry"

I love this reference to Thomeks post in your last thread.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Overdriven on September 10, 2012, 06:50:09 pm
I don't mind class stacking. It's usually only for 1 map if it happens and then things get rebalanced. Clans changing things is a rare ocurrance so that can't really be taken into equation. I also have an alt of almost any class so if I see there are a high number of archers or cav or whatever on the server I'll switch to an alt rather than getting miserable over the fact I'm being shot to pieces by archers because I have no shield or frustrated with cav because my weapon is to short.

There are ways to combat any class stacking, though a lot of it can rely on team mates and I think that is where the problem lies.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Zlisch_The_Butcher on September 10, 2012, 06:50:46 pm
The problem is that cav is OP
The problem is that NH players are naturally even less intelligent than Euretards.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Leshma on September 10, 2012, 06:52:15 pm
Stop hating on GKs. They seem like only organized clan left playing on EU1. Without them EU1 will die.

You said there's 20 of them in one team. That's one third of people playing on EU1.

Quote
EU_cRPG_1_New   56   Battle   Yes

Why don't you try to gather your clansmen to play cRPG. Haven't been online for some time but it seems Byz aren't playing in numbers they used to play before and that's why you're so frustrated about cav.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Zlisch_The_Butcher on September 10, 2012, 06:56:15 pm
BTW: Only way to actually fix this cav imbalance is to buff throwing, I think me, Lorenzo, and Lactose can agree on that.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Lactose_the_intolerant on September 10, 2012, 06:57:52 pm
I don't mind class stacking. It's usually only for 1 map if it happens and then things get rebalanced. Clans changing things is a rare ocurrance so that can't really be taken into equation. I also have an alt of almost any class so if I see there are a high number of archers or cav or whatever on the server I'll switch to an alt rather than getting miserable over the fact I'm being shot to pieces by archers because I have no shield or frustrated with cav because my weapon is to short.

There are ways to combat any class stacking, though a lot of it can rely on team mates and I think that is where the problem lies.

sadly you like to believe that this happens on a rare occurence. But it doesnt. In the afternoon before you all came on, we had two maps in the row were there numbers as 3 cav 18 and such. Best part is that no banner balance was actually involved. I have to say it looked kind of epic at first, seeing 20+ cav ride around the village was an amazing sight but in the end it just finished in a fuckfest
Then GK came on and you didnt stay for just one map...

leshma, there's been another topic of 10 pages about this and after all that you still don't seem to get the core problem of this.

zlisch, a throwing lance is often enough to persuade them not to get close, i love watching them jump like a mountain goat to avoid a projectile  8-) But taking a head on cav charge is a high risk medium reward job
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 10, 2012, 06:58:20 pm
But i would disagree on a certain point.stacking melee on one side wont cause to much trouble to the enemy team, they can get raped by archers cav and other melees. ranged is a problem but it can be overcome with cav and good shielders. On the other hand cav....

I don't know now, if I just didn't understand what you mean, or perhaps you misunderstood me, but I did want to say that a team which consists of infantry is not as strong as a team which consists of archers or cavalry. All players tend to attack beneficial targets, which are unaware or distracted. But due to their limited mobility and attack range (3m at the most for a pikeman) infantry has the hardest time picking beneficial targets, while you can have 50 archers simultaneously and effectively attacking a single enemy. Additional Infantry increases the team strength linearly, but additional cav and archers increase it exponentially.

I disagree on arab horse, i find it fine. what makes me more twitchy on the other hand is the destrier who is far to effective for 5 riding skill giving any infantry a ride on a the best all around horse, making him as effective as any other dedicated cav. This is why, imo there are so much cav. For me Destrier>arab>courser
Maybe destrier 6 riding skill?

I don't think that the amount of kills alone decides. I think it is what I wrote above: the better flexibility. Cav and archers are much more flexible and not limited in the choice of targets. Infantry is slow and can only engage those who enter melee range. In a game which is about wiping the enemy off the map those are not the most attractive attributes. If we changed the gamemode to something conquest-like, you would need a hammer and an anvil, a battering ram, and infantry would have its justification. But trying to hunt down someone who is faster than you and can attack you while you can't attack him is pretty pointless. That's why the number of cavalry and archers is increasing, despite all the nerfs they had to take in the past patches. And any further stat nerf won't change anything, because even with only one HP and no bump damage horses will be faster, and with only 3 cutting damage bows will still be able to attack over range.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Leshma on September 10, 2012, 07:02:42 pm
Only way to fix cav imbalance is to seriously think about removal of banner balance.

Question is, how many clans are active these days?

If their numbers are lower than numbers of pubbies, then banner balance should be temporarily disabled so that people who actually play the mod can enjoy it to the fullest.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Lactose_the_intolerant on September 10, 2012, 07:02:49 pm
Only way to fix cav imbalance is to seriously think about removal of banner balance.

Question is, how many clans are active these days?

If their numbers are lower than numbers of pubbies, then banner balance should be temporarily disabled so that people who actually play the mod can enjoy it to the fullest.


I think everyone is off in guild wars, dont know how long that craze will be going on

I don't know now, if I just didn't understand what you mean, or perhaps you misunderstood me, but I did want to say that a team which consists of infantry is not as strong as a team which consists of archers or cavalry. All players tend to attack beneficial targets, which are unaware or distracted. But due to their limited mobility and attack range (3m at the most for a pikeman) infantry has the hardest time picking beneficial targets, while you can have 50 archers simultaneously and effectively attacking a single enemy. Additional Infantry increases the team strength linearly, but additional cav and archers increase it exponentially.

I don't think that the amount of kills alone decides. I think it is what I wrote above: the better flexibility. Cav and archers are much more flexible and not limited in the choice of targets. Infantry is slow and can only engage those who enter melee range. In a game which is about wiping the enemy off the map those are not the most attractive attributes. If we changed the gamemode to something conquest-like, you would need a hammer and an anvil, a battering ram, and infantry would have its justification. But trying to hunt down someone who is faster than you and can attack you while you can't attack him is pretty pointless. That's why the number of cavalry and archers is increasing, despite all the nerfs they had to take in the past patches. And any further stat nerf won't change anything, because even with only one HP and no bump damage horses will be faster, and with only 3 cutting damage bows will still be able to attack over range.

I'm not talking about nerfing stats of horse but just to limit the easy acces to cav hybrid
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Torben on September 10, 2012, 07:04:50 pm
give me full lance angle and free level 48 build and put all cav in the other team. 

that would make things fair for sure : )

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Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on September 10, 2012, 07:05:41 pm
Cav isn't the problem (it would be archers if it wasn't cav), it's that the teams are unbalanced and you have 20 cav on one side (or 20 archers) and 5 on the other team. 

We've seen this before in NA1 when you have 10 SemenStorm Horse Crossbowmen on one team, and the other team has no horse crossbow or archers. 

The balance system should TRY to balance by banner, but if one side has too few of a class, it should take from wherever it needs, in order to balance it up. 

The team balance system is the problem.  I like playing with my clansmen, that being said, our enjoyment shouldn't take precedence over everyone elses.  The only game I've ever seen a pub stomp not only be accepted, but actually encouraged, is c-rpg. 
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 10, 2012, 07:17:00 pm
Only way to fix cav imbalance is to seriously think about removal of banner balance.

Click me gently, I'm a link (http://forum.meleegaming.com/general-discussion/autobalance-is-awful/msg431813/#msg431813)

Wouldn't that work? No need to prevent people of playing with their clanmates.  :wink:
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Zlisch_The_Butcher on September 10, 2012, 07:23:16 pm
zlisch, a throwing lance is often enough to persuade them not to get close, i love watching them jump like a mountain goat to avoid a projectile  8-) But taking a head on cav charge is a high risk medium reward job
Not really, now a days 75% of all lancers got shields, and I don't ever aim for the horse due to lack of ammo, so, fix cav by giving me 3 throwing lances per stack!
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Zlisch_The_Butcher on September 10, 2012, 07:24:37 pm
give me full lance angle and free level 48 build and put all cav in the other team. 

that would make things fair for sure : )
As long as you can't use a shield I'd be fine with you have a level 60 build.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Torost on September 10, 2012, 07:31:15 pm
"Someone" has revised all the maps, removing ladders, staircases, putting up invisible walls on the roofs etc... so that there is nowhere to hide from the Cavhorde.. Most maps everyone needs to stay on the flat ground..

I am 2slot high PD archer.. I love taking out cav... but lately there has been very few maps where I do not get trampled and sqewerd like a kebaab pretty fast. All the "Good" spots are gone..

Maybe as intended... but Cav supremacy is the result....

Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Lactose_the_intolerant on September 10, 2012, 07:41:14 pm
Not really, now a days 75% of all lancers got shields, and I don't ever aim for the horse due to lack of ammo, so, fix cav by giving me 3 throwing lances per stack!

meh, throwing lances are useless, they are purely to show off you have 7 pd and to inflict fear in 2h berserkers....but we will discuss that in another thread
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Turboflex on September 10, 2012, 07:42:52 pm
The problem is that NH players are naturally even less intelligent than Euretards.

You sound pretty butthurt cuz the only time I ever seen you in c-rpg was months ago when I reported you for shitting up NA2 by sitting around and non-contributing by building catapults.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Zlisch_The_Butcher on September 10, 2012, 07:47:50 pm
meh, throwing lances are useless, they are purely to show off you have 7 pd and to inflict fear in 2h berserkers....but we will discuss that in another thread
Make the thread or I'll discuss it here.
You sound pretty butthurt cuz the only time I ever seen you in c-rpg was months ago when I reported you for shitting up NA2 by sitting around and non-contributing by building catapults.
Turbo your random "Cav is OP" shit proves I'm right.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Lactose_the_intolerant on September 10, 2012, 07:51:19 pm
now now kids, let's not derail this thread please  8-)
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: IR_Kuoin on September 10, 2012, 07:53:44 pm
Panos was rigth, if you would only have listened to him when he talked about the GK's, look what you have done!
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Zlisch_The_Butcher on September 10, 2012, 08:02:07 pm
now now kids, let's not derail this thread please  8-)
So, what throwing weapons do you prefer?
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 10, 2012, 08:18:50 pm
I would be very careful when buffing throwing. Actually I would leave it as it is, for now. You can screw up things way too easily.

Throwing is a very VERY complicated matter.

Reality gives a few prerequisites, and putting them into a balanced class is really difficult. The biggest problem of all is, that throwing was always only a support weapon. You never had pure throwers in armies, like you had pure archers or the like. On one hand it should be a "full", viable class, on the other hand we don't want to encourage more ranged spam or even turn melee into the duel of the last few survivors of the short range throwing massacre we would have if throwing was buffed too much.

The problem is: if you make throwing too accurate, it becomes OP as it is too easy to shoot people on close distance. If you make throwing less accurate, it becomes more of a luck based class, and if you give throwing more ammo to make up for the lower accuracy, you encourage ranged spam. On one hand throwing should deal the biggest damage of all ranged classes, as it suffers the biggest restrictions, on the other hand it is really annoying to be oneshot by a lucky hit on close distance.

Buffing throwers means annoying almost all other classes. And this is no lobbyism, because throwing is not really the peak of skill requirement. Just think about 2hd and polearm infantry, they would suffer a lot from this. Not that they were already suffering a lot, but you will never know to what a decrease in 2hd and halberd infantry will lead... and don't forget that pikes, an important anti-cav-element, would suffer from buffed throwing, too.

Seriously, I wouldn't touch throwing, and I don't really see it as solution against cav. I already gave a good solution, but people don't mind to answer. Buffing throwing to deal with cav (or buffing any class to deal with another class) will always end like those stories where people imported a certain animal from the other side of the world into their country to deal with a certain other animal...
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Turboflex on September 10, 2012, 08:23:43 pm
Turbo your random "Cav is OP" shit proves I'm right.

I am not some kind of anti-cav fanatic, we have some cav in our clan, good ones too who do well on charts and work closely with infantry setup a lot easy kills for footmen and screen against archers. I also have no personal fear of cav, I carry 2 stacks of throwing weps and bring a lot of them down, I especially love when they charge me, adds nicely to my point total. I dislike getting lanced in back as much as the next guy, but I tear more skin off cav than they get off me.

Doesn't mean the class isn't OP on the whole. The arguement is pretty simple, cav costs very little (5 skill points, no wpf has a special inventory slot), is a huge power enhancer, has no downside. Even when someone takes out your horse legs you fight on as a fully effective infantry without a scratch. Cav was supposed to be balanced out by cost, but now that you can sell loompoint easy, who cares if you lose some money during a gen, very easy to finance with loom sale.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on September 10, 2012, 08:29:09 pm
Here's how you fix throwing.  Make throwing weapons much more accurate (most likely by reducing the WPF you lose on every PT to something like 6), and then make the max throwing weapons you can carry 2 or 3 (not two or three stacks of 3, 2 or 3 total).  There really shouldn't be pure thrower builds, and if there are, they shouldn't be able to carry 12 throwing axes, where are they pulling them from?

Throwing should remain a hybrid class, but you should bump up the accuracy, and reduce the amount you can carry.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 10, 2012, 08:41:18 pm
I am not some kind of anti-cav fanatic, we have some cav in our clan, good ones too who do well on charts and work closely with infantry setup a lot easy kills for footmen and screen against archers. I also have no personal fear of cav, I carry 2 stacks of throwing weps and bring a lot of them down, I especially love when they charge me, adds nicely to my point total. I dislike getting lanced in back as much as the next guy, but I tear more skin off cav than they get off me.

Doesn't mean the class isn't OP on the whole. The arguement is pretty simple, cav costs very little (5 skill points, no wpf has a special inventory slot), is a huge power enhancer, has no downside. Even when someone takes out your horse legs you fight on as a fully effective infantry without a scratch. Cav was supposed to be balanced out by cost, but now that you can sell loompoint easy, who cares if you lose some money during a gen, very easy to finance with loom sale.

That's right.

Some time ago I made a suggestion (http://forum.meleegaming.com/suggestions-corner/replace-upkeep-system-with-equipment-limiting-system-that-works!/msg451520/#msg451520) concerning a change of the upkeep system, but I got flamed to the ground.

Here's how you fix throwing.  Make throwing weapons much more accurate (most likely by reducing the WPF you lose on every PT to something like 6), and then make the max throwing weapons you can carry 2 or 3 (not two or three stacks of 3, 2 or 3 total).  There really shouldn't be pure thrower builds, and if there are, they shouldn't be able to carry 12 throwing axes, where are they pulling them from?

Throwing should remain a hybrid class, but you should bump up the accuracy, and reduce the amount you can carry.

I wouldn't support that. That would mean you would have some guaranteed kills every round, as an accurate throwing weapon on short distance is a sure kill. Especially if the thrower is skilled.

You would still have pure throwers, which rely on scavenging, and it would work, because the popularity would raise rapidly. That would lead to a development, where you first have the long range fighting with archers and crossbowmen, and then, when the two infantry clusters spproach, the short range fighting starts, and once it is over, the few survivors would finally engage in melee.

This would make "real" melee (backstabbing cav is no melee) even more unattractive, more infantry players would change their class, and you would increase the problems we have, instead of lowering them.

Leave throwing as it is, implement conquest mode.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Riddaren on September 10, 2012, 08:51:34 pm
1. Awareness

This is the main reason why cavalry has such an advantage. The mobility and speed of the horses combined with the low awareness among players.
If everyone would just be aware cavalry would become a lot harder and fewer people would play it as a result. Because most kills are made up of unware enemies.


2. Egocentricity & laziness

Players don't bother looking out for each other, instead they are greedy for kills and care only for their own score.
It doesn't have to be like this. YOU can make a difference. Someone has to start.

Personaly I think it's quite rewarding helping teamates out when I can. I suggest you try it more often if your not doing it much already.
It might not give you a good score but it may help the team even more. Furthermore people do appreciate when others help them and you will get their trust in return.
Players will look up to you more and who knows, you might be able to give out orders to masses of players if many players respect and trust you.

Sadly, we cannot make a score system where players are rewarded for saving teamates.
But the thing is, the loss of a teamate is just as much of a loss that a kill is a loss for the enemy. More or less.


3. Teamplay

Don't leave teamates behind. Wait for them and stick together.
It's quite stupid imo blaming cavalry for spawn raping when it could be prevented simply by waiting for everyone to spawn. Really.

Don't walk out in the open if the enemy team have lots of cavalry.
Stay close together somwhere safe, like against a wall, on a roof, on a hill or a slope.

When advancing in a group try to stick closer together and watch your back.
The thing is, that people tend to feel safe when walking in big groups but ironically you can often just couch lance through all of them.

If you have lots of ranged and the enemy have lots of cavalry, don't charge their infantry at start of round.
Wait in spawn and deal with their incoming cavalry to begin with.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 10, 2012, 08:56:58 pm
A good post, but I fear it won't help much, as most of the autowalking-lemming-Rambo-retards are not even willing to read any post above the length of three... letters!

I tried several times to change the behaviour of the players on the servers - no chance! They see it as limitations, outliving your inferiority complexes, or simply boring. Many of them LOVE to fight in unadvantageous situations.

And, by the way, even experienced and dedicated infantry players who concentrate on fending off cavalry can't survive three or four lancers swarming him. All awareness has its limits.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Gurnisson on September 10, 2012, 09:05:20 pm
And, by the way, even experienced and dedicated infantry players who concentrate on fending off cavalry can't survive three or four lancers swarming him. All awareness has its limits.

May also add that you can't be aware to all sides at any given moment, that's completely impossible.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Cepeshi on September 10, 2012, 09:07:43 pm
To Riddaren and all those using awareness as a possible solution: HAHAHAHAHAHHA!

How on earth will help me to know all about whereabouts of all them 25 horses trying to rape 3 infantrymen? All awareness in the world will not help you here. Same with a opposing team stacked with cav/archers, you would just have to run around like retard with ocassional downblock and not do anything else. Not to talk if you reach an enemy infantrymen, that is just harvesting season for them whorsemen.

And yeah, i played horse for like 5 gens or so, quite some time.

Egocentricity and laziness, again, you expect people to cooperate in score based system? B*tch, please...Only time i get to do some teamwork is when some of my clannies are on, other than that i pick a target which i protect from any possible harm, that is quite challenging minigame, but still, on larger scale impossible to achieve.

Any class stacking is retarded, you can say whatever you want, but if one team has all the ranged and horses, its pretty much game over for them (saw several times that almost purely horse/shooter teams got owned by mostly infantry), but that depends on the map quite a lot.

I would like to see this problem of class-stacking fixed, but sadly i have no idea how it could be done. Breaking banner balance for some sort of skillpoint balance is a no-go for me, i want to play with them few clannies i still have, not against them.

I say create a cav only server...you cannot enter without riding skill, just as is the low lvl one. Let them have their "cav vs. cav" fights they are so eager about and rest of us can go have fun on other servers.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Riddaren on September 10, 2012, 09:48:10 pm
(click to show/hide)

That's funny. Thank you for making my point even more clear.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Ptolemy on September 10, 2012, 09:50:23 pm
What's that? Blanket ban cav?

Sure why not. It worked on Star Trek.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Riddaren on September 10, 2012, 10:10:16 pm
May also add that you can't be aware to all sides at any given moment, that's completely impossible.

Of course. But many players doesn't seem to be looking around at all.
It's not hard to hear and react to the sound of an approaching horse.

Sure, some are playing with music so loud they can't hear horses but there are just too many players that can be backstabbed with ease even though there are no other horses nearby.

ps
If everyone were as aware as you being cavalry would be quite... different  :wink:
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Gurnisson on September 10, 2012, 10:33:57 pm
Of course. But many players doesn't seem to be looking around at all.

Yes, and they deserve to die. Walking without thinking is fine if you walk next to a hoplite or a pikeman but wandering alone without any form for support and whining about getting raped by cav would just be a joke.

It's not hard to hear and react to the sound of an approaching horse.

True, it's easy to react to the sound, however it's really hard to know where it's coming from. You can't really tell it from the sound from which direction the horse's coming.

If everyone were as aware as you being cavalry would be quite... different  :wink:

If they all carried pikes as well? :P
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Kafein on September 10, 2012, 10:49:01 pm
If they all carried pikes as well? :P

Except when people around you are really too close, any weapon can do if you are aware. And I stress on the first part, it's often safer for cav to run in a big group of enemies as long as the first ones don't know you are there.

Hell, now that I carry throwing spears, I only have look at cav and they go another way. The experienced ones do. The others usually miss me and I miss them too because I'm terrible at throwing. I use it as a psychological weapon. There's always the off chance the projectile can hit you, and nobody likes that. It also attracts the attention of archers and crossbowmen that will fire at my shield instead of my teammates.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: BattalGazi on September 10, 2012, 11:12:04 pm
The phrase "Cavalry is over-powered" is not much different than "Sun is hot", i.e. it does not introduce any ground breaking news. This game is about medieval, and cavalry should actually be overpowered. If you try to alter this truth with idiotic nerfs, then you are basically screwing up the reality mechanics. Every class is superior to any other, also it has weaknesses the same way.
That simple. It's rock-paper-scissors balance here. Instead of trying to nerf the cavalry, I suggest to introduce a class based balance on top of banner balance. Or just stick with a class player who is superior to the one you are afraid of.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on September 10, 2012, 11:19:33 pm
It's exactly what happened in real life as well.  Forward facing armies were dominant for quite a long time as a military tactic, but were weak from the flank.  This led to cavalry charges (when possible) on the enemies flanks, and destroyed them because they couldn't turn to face the incoming threat (it was slow to turn and face them, and then it left them vulnerable to the spearhead of your own infantry). 

Cavalry was very powerful for a while until armies started using pikes in their formations (lots and lots and lots of pikes).  Not to mention crossbows being able to be picked up by anyone with little training and being useful (en masse) on the battlefield. 

I wish for two things in c-rpg:

1) Infantry that was able to fight in formations (even loose, semi-formations) - this would require better communication in game, and game play mechanics to support it (i.e. being able to have people march at the same speed).

2)  Braceable pikes/spears/lances that if you run into them, you get hurt.  If you're riding a horse and run into them, you get skewered.  To expand on this, any weapon could be run into by anyone and cause damage (the weapon has an ability to inflict damage even if not being swung).  Also, horses should be able to get "stuck" on pikes, and basically stop their forward movement immediately (instead of the corpse turning into a ghost and flying through the pike).  Also, then I would like to see the bodies of horses be able to cause damage after they die.  Same with people, if someone jumps off a roof and lands on you, it's probably going to hurt them, but it should hurt you too if they fall on you. 
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Skyline on September 10, 2012, 11:40:47 pm
It's exactly what happened in real life as well.  Forward facing armies were dominant for quite a long time as a military tactic, but were weak from the flank.  This led to cavalry charges (when possible) on the enemies flanks, and destroyed them because they couldn't turn to face the incoming threat (it was slow to turn and face them, and then it left them vulnerable to the spearhead of your own infantry). 

Cavalry was very powerful for a while until armies started using pikes in their formations (lots and lots and lots of pikes).  Not to mention crossbows being able to be picked up by anyone with little training and being useful (en masse) on the battlefield. 

I wish for two things in c-rpg:

1) Infantry that was able to fight in formations (even loose, semi-formations) - this would require better communication in game, and game play mechanics to support it (i.e. being able to have people march at the same speed).

2)  Braceable pikes/spears/lances that if you run into them, you get hurt.  If you're riding a horse and run into them, you get skewered.  To expand on this, any weapon could be run into by anyone and cause damage (the weapon has an ability to inflict damage even if not being swung).  Also, horses should be able to get "stuck" on pikes, and basically stop their forward movement immediately (instead of the corpse turning into a ghost and flying through the pike).  Also, then I would like to see the bodies of horses be able to cause damage after they die.  Same with people, if someone jumps off a roof and lands on you, it's probably going to hurt them, but it should hurt you too if they fall on you.

I think all the wood handle weapons should take damage like shields do.... for blocking more than swinging but still
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Son Of Odin on September 11, 2012, 12:48:50 am
As this concerns game balance, I am opening a thread here hoping we can seriously discuss the matter

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: IR_Kuoin on September 11, 2012, 01:13:17 am
Odin got moderator so he could post a gif. on every single thread withouth any punishment   :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Son Of Odin on September 11, 2012, 01:32:43 am
Odin got moderator so he could post a gif. on every single thread withouth any punishment   :mrgreen:
I did it even before I got these fine blue blocks over my avatar :mrgreen:

I waited until my post would not affect on the thread outcome... I knew this was one of those threads that just don't produce good discussion but sweet chaotic forum games and just precisely everything what Lactose didn't want in this thread. Why? Because he locked the original thread and posted a link to this one. It is kinda obvious that the shitposters/flamers/trolls/godzillas come here after they see where the previous discussion is being continued...
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 11, 2012, 01:44:32 am
The phrase "Cavalry is over-powered" is not much different than "Sun is hot", i.e. it does not introduce any ground breaking news. This game is about medieval, and cavalry should actually be overpowered. If you try to alter this truth with idiotic nerfs, then you are basically screwing up the reality mechanics. Every class is superior to any other, also it has weaknesses the same way.
  • You cannot whine about how cavalry kills you easily if you are not carrying a pike or you are just walking alone.
  • You cannot whine about archers if you are slow or you don't carry a shield.
  • You cannot whine about pikemen or archers if you are a cavalry.
That simple. It's rock-paper-scissors balance here. Instead of trying to nerf the cavalry, I suggest to introduce a class based balance on top of banner balance. Or just stick with a class player who is superior to the one you are afraid of.

What can't archer or cavalry whine about if they get killed?

And btw., balance is far more important than reality. And that's why - unlike in reality - cav should NOT be superior to any other class, as there would be no point in playing those other classes then.  :wink:
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Thomek on September 11, 2012, 01:49:27 am
BattalGazi is right in theory..

But when skill levels and competetiveness begin to equal out between the playerbase, the easier classes tend to get more numerous.

That's what we see now with cav.. It has happened many times in the past with archers, and the easy answer is NERF.

Of course, that's also the lamest and most unimaginative answer.... The main problem we have is devs not taking ANY ACTION whatsover and lets the situation devolve into a less fun game.

Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: IR_Kuoin on September 11, 2012, 01:53:39 am
Well, before the devs. can do anything they also have to find a solution that fits with the cav players so they don't get a HUGE whine post wave  :|
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Ptolemy on September 11, 2012, 01:58:08 am
Fuck the cav players, let them whine, they're ruining the game for everyone else.

Bring on the -1's, cav lobby. Your rage-tears fuel me.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Son Of Odin on September 11, 2012, 03:22:22 am
Fuck the ninja players, let them whine, they're trying to ruin the game for everyone else.

Bring on the -1's, anti-cav lobby. Your rage-tears fuel me.

fix'd
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Thomek on September 11, 2012, 04:11:30 am
I predict your global moderator status won't last very long Odin.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Fandrall on September 11, 2012, 04:37:53 am
I dont know if its mine (and from the looks of it others) imagination but I often get the feeling "classes" are getting stacked in one team. Not only the guys from one clan but as Lactose described in his first thread. If this is true some class and maybe even lvl balancing system aswell as the banner balance should be implemented to create more balanced teams.

Banner balance in combination with a clan made up of many of the same class (or all like us GK) might create this stacking if there's many enough from that clan online. However if it does not create total imbalance classwise I for one would not want to be forced to play against my clanmates so I think banner balance should be the most important factor when creating teams.
 
All classes have strengths and weaknesses. So in theory a team with high concentration of one class should be easier to counter than an evenly mixed one. However I believe that teamwork is so much more important than both which class you play and how good you are individually. Therefor if one team use more teamwork than the other it will be at an advantage. And ofcourse a clan sitting on TS will have an easier time getting some teamwork going than a team of randomers without TS.

As for cav being OP im not sure. I dont feel OP but at the same time I feel that the speed and manueverability of the horse should come at a price. Maybe riding should be more expensive like HA to force cav players specc deeper into agi making them/us weaker once on foot. For that to work I think some tweaking of the horses is needed though.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Torben on September 11, 2012, 04:50:02 am
IMaybe riding should be more expensive like HA to force cav players specc deeper into agi making them/us weaker once on foot.

that would hurt the lower level casual players most...
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Kafein on September 11, 2012, 05:06:32 am
Anyway, what can cav players do when they are downed is of little relevance. It only very rarely does not lead to an immediate death.



As with kiting archers, what people are complaining about is not the strength of the class, it's the behavior. Nerfing backstabbing cav and buffing organised charges at groups of enemies would be a step in the right direction.


Cav relies on backstabbing because they are forced to. It's something they do quite well, but the real reason is that cav is terrible at doing anything else. Create a STF horseman, go on a duel server and try for yourself. Everyone but the slowest turtles will be a serious challenge, and you will never win against half of the players, simply because of weapon length differences.


The human body as a weight, even though this isn't true in warband. On the other hand, horses are not all crippled and obese. Balancing the agility of horses and humans would go a long way into making cav a class worth something in a straight fight. Of course this should go with nerfs, especially to backstabbing. I can't think of many possibilities right now but I'm sure it's not that hard to find. At the very least, collisions with the environment and other horses should have serious consequences. A dead stop is quite dangerous and usually a death sentence when in enemy areas, but it's really not punishing enough.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Adamar on September 11, 2012, 05:12:11 am
I know, ridding damages one's testicles, so each new retirement should bear some wpf and skill penalties to the new generation. Alternatively, horsemen could choose to play female characters or not at all.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Son Of Odin on September 11, 2012, 05:32:04 am
I predict your global moderator status won't last very long Odin.
No one predicted your admin status last this long, Thomek :wink:
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Ptolemy on September 11, 2012, 09:46:10 am
Anyway, what can cav players do when they are downed is of little relevance. It only very rarely does not lead to an immediate death.

This is just not true. Previously, yes, you could easily kill a fallen rider before they got up and started fighting back, but since the horse's corpse has started taking damage while it's dead the rider often has that crucial couple of seconds they need to get on their feet and start attacking/blocking.

Another way to stop this would be to not allow fallen cavalry to instant-switch from their lance to a secondary weapon, like for example (sorry Wolf), the poleaxe. This would mean that the downed player would have to stand up before they can switch their weapon, putting them at a greater disadvantage after being de-horsed. I don't believe this idea has been discussed yet?
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Tovi on September 11, 2012, 10:45:44 am
I'm not a 2h spammer hero, so as a thrower/hoplite my role is to protect my team from cav.
I never, never rush into melee as long as I can see enemy cav running around. This would be a team suicide.
If I can, I stand close a lone archer to protect him against cav while he's shooting on them.
I can kill an average 2 or 3 horses in a round.
My problem is the dehorsed cav-man who can kill me 50% of time. At this moment I need 2h support. But where are they ??? Fighting somewhere in the middle of the map...

My advice :
- don't rush, kill cav first or...
- join GK and have fun :)
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 11, 2012, 01:46:04 pm
And what if the GKs use tactics themselves, wait, until your infantry cluster meets their infantry cluster, and then start picking people who are engaged in fights? How much can tactics, sticking together and awareness help them?

All classes have strengths and weaknesses. So in theory a team with high concentration of one class should be easier to counter than an evenly mixed one.

I wouldn't sign that. Often you need a certain class to counter another class. But if the team has stacked a lot of one class, there won't be enough counters, and thus the stacked class will easily hunt down their "prey class" first and there will be an imbalance between the teams which will almost always lead to the victory of one team.

And the problem cRPG has is, that of the three "meta classes" it has, ranged, cav and infantry, cav and ranged represent the counter to each other, while infantry doesn't really counter anything. Shields stop arrows, but they don't kill archers. Pikes fend off horsemen, but they don't kill them. Cavalry kills archers who are standing in tunnel vision and shooting, and archers shoot horses and their riders.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: matt2507 on September 11, 2012, 02:39:45 pm
This is just not true. Previously, yes, you could easily kill a fallen rider before they got up and started fighting back, but since the horse's corpse has started taking damage while it's dead the rider often has that crucial couple of seconds they need to get on their feet and start attacking/blocking.

Another way to stop this would be to not allow fallen cavalry to instant-switch from their lance to a secondary weapon, like for example (sorry Wolf), the poleaxe. This would mean that the downed player would have to stand up before they can switch their weapon, putting them at a greater disadvantage after being de-horsed. I don't believe this idea has been discussed yet?

euh, have you noticed the time was that we put up from a fall ?

I guess as infantry you find it fast, but I can assure you that when it is you who fall, you find that suddenly becomes very long time, especially when you see a hating cavs gang jump on you in taking their time to prepare their shots and you can do absolutely nothing except watching  :lol:

if you can not change weapons, it means that death is the moment when the horse dies, which is already the case most of the time.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on September 11, 2012, 04:03:42 pm
And what if the GKs use tactics themselves, wait, until your infantry cluster meets their infantry cluster, and then start picking people who are engaged in fights? How much can tactics, sticking together and awareness help them?

I wouldn't sign that. Often you need a certain class to counter another class. But if the team has stacked a lot of one class, there won't be enough counters, and thus the stacked class will easily hunt down their "prey class" first and there will be an imbalance between the teams which will almost always lead to the victory of one team.

And the problem cRPG has is, that of the three "meta classes" it has, ranged, cav and infantry, cav and ranged represent the counter to each other, while infantry doesn't really counter anything. Shields stop arrows, but they don't kill archers. Pikes fend off horsemen, but they don't kill them. Cavalry kills archers who are standing in tunnel vision and shooting, and archers shoot horses and their riders.

So infantry (non shield/pikemen/throwers) should be protecting the archers and pikemen.  And the pikemen and archers will be protecting the infantry...but instead most of the time you have a zerg rush to the enemy.

This discussion SHOULD BE about a better team balance system, but since people want to discuss class balance let's go there.

I still believe that infantry actually protecting their ranged, and fighting with their shielders and pikemen will instantly counter all the archer/cavalry whine, but people can't be arsed to actually fight as a team instead of zerg rushing at the enemy.  I don't see how that makes cavalry or archers overpowered.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Fartface on September 11, 2012, 06:41:24 pm
I use the view outfit button to check around me all the time!
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: PhigNewtenz on September 11, 2012, 07:07:21 pm
This is just not true. Previously, yes, you could easily kill a fallen rider before they got up and started fighting back, but since the horse's corpse has started taking damage while it's dead the rider often has that crucial couple of seconds they need to get on their feet and start attacking/blocking.

I have to disagree with this. Very rarely does a fallen rider end up completely obscured by their dead horse. That usually happens if the horse and rider slide into a wall or something. Most of the time, the rider is in the open and defenseless but also very near the dead horse. The problem is that both ranged and melee people are accustomed to ignoring the horses body, so they shoot and/or swing through the horses hit box. Players are already getting used to this (dare I say realistic?) difference and ground killing is becoming routine again. Remember: think, then swing.

This discussion SHOULD BE about a better team balance system, but since people want to discuss class balance let's go there.

I agree! In regards to team balance (though perhaps not the team balance system) Has anyone ever looked into the logistics of allowing players to switch between their main and alts without leaving the server and without losing their multiplier? Many players have alts of different classes (I for one currently have a lancer main with thrower and melee alts) and this would allow them to switch to counter the other teams make up. For instance (and going back to the topic at hand) if the other team had a large amount of cavalry I would probably switch off my main (going 1 lancer vs. 10 isn't fun) and onto a thrower or a melee with a spear.

Would this royally bork the auto-balance? Yes, it probably would. Could that be addressed? Possibly:
This is just a crazy idea the popped into my head, but it seems like it would reduce the misery of facing a stacked team and could add additional strategy and variety to the game.

Thoughts?
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 11, 2012, 08:55:58 pm
I think such a thing would not help much. In fact it can even increase the problems on maps which favour a certain class, which will be either archers or cavalry.

And the restriction to changing to an alt which is of the same level is no way near precise enough. Generation, equipment, your K/D and W/L and a lot of other things would need to be calculated, and I don't think it would help the already complicated issue of establishing a working autobalancer.

The idea is tempting, don't get me wrong, and it would be nice to switch from one character to another without logging off, but it would bring a lot of problems. That's my opinion, at least.  :?
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Sandersson Jankins on September 11, 2012, 09:24:59 pm
Click me gently, I'm a link (http://forum.meleegaming.com/general-discussion/autobalance-is-awful/msg431813/#msg431813)

Wouldn't that work? No need to prevent people of playing with their clanmates.  :wink:

This fucking guy right here. Dis nigga right hurr. He just laid out EXACTLY what needs to fucking happen. Like, there wasn't a SINGLE flaw in what he said. Joker for crpg president 2012.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Thomek on September 11, 2012, 09:33:57 pm
I think such a thing would not help much. In fact it can even increase the problems on maps which favour a certain class, which will be either archers or cavalry.

And the restriction to changing to an alt which is of the same level is no way near precise enough. Generation, equipment, your K/D and W/L and a lot of other things would need to be calculated, and I don't think it would help the already complicated issue of establishing a working autobalancer.

The idea is tempting, don't get me wrong, and it would be nice to switch from one character to another without logging off, but it would bring a lot of problems. That's my opinion, at least.  :?

I have to commend joker on generally writing shorter and better! :)
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 11, 2012, 09:38:34 pm
Thanks a lot!  :D
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: PhigNewtenz on September 11, 2012, 11:02:51 pm
And the restriction to changing to an alt which is of the same level is no way near precise enough. Generation, equipment, your K/D and W/L and a lot of other things would need to be calculated, and I don't think it would help the already complicated issue of establishing a working autobalancer.

Great critiques, or they would be if I was proposing a new auto-balance system:

Experience, generation, equipment, K/D, W/L and many other stats we talk about are relatively poor measures of what a main/alt can contribute on a specific map and in a specific fight. Why do we use them? They are the best that we have. Fortunately this is a topic about 'stacking', which ties in to one stat that I feel is a reasonably good measure: class (which I think is what you may have been referring to when you said 'equipment').

I followed the link you posted and read your 8 step plan for fixing auto-balance (great post by the way). I think you mostly hit the nail on the head. Balancing classes between teams can lead to fair and interesting combat. Is implementing your fourth step (the hidden classes) and balancing by the results possible? Certainly. It would be imperfect and subject to manipulation (like all systems) but would do the job, and likely do it far better than the current system.

Allowing people to switch between alts would accomplish the same thing, but in a different way. It would put the burden of proper team composition on the players and add another level of planning and strategy to the game. I for one would prefer choosing how I can best help my team, to having an algorithm take the best shot it can and sticking me with the result for four to seven rounds.

Teams don't need to be symmetrical to be fair. Does each team having exactly X infantry, Y cavalry, Z archers (and of course equal numbers of all the sub-classes you defined within) have a pleasing symmetry to it? I can see the appeal, but it seems boringly predictable.

Let people figure it out for themselves and you can have tactics that are always different, and teams that adapt to interesting maps which are fair without being

Clean out all maps that are not perfectly even.

Check out if there are "natural fortifications" (turning battles into "soft" sieges), if the distances to choke points are equal (the team spawning closer to the central bridge will lose in the majority of all cases), and if both teams spawn on the same height level (so one team doesn't need to fight uphill).

depressingly symmetrical.

Anyway, it was just an idea. Too many ideas are shot down when people only see challenges. Thanks for your response; these are good debates to have.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: BattalGazi on September 11, 2012, 11:52:42 pm
I really don't think HA is easy mode. All the upkeep you pay ( horse + arrow stacks ) and sacrifice in means of skill points ( no IF, no PS, no ATH )  and ridiculous low body armor, low enough for 1 shot/cut/thrust to kill you, very rare valor chances, and if you are still able to survive and kill people,that is not an easy mode my friend. Show some respect damn it you whiners.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Ptolemy on September 12, 2012, 12:42:50 am
I guess as infantry you find it fast...

As I've said in another thread, I have alts for every class, including Cavalry, HA, HX. I don't find the fall times all that long, and about 70% of the time I survive the immediate after-math of the fall (but die shortly after because I never have any Athletics or Iron Flesh).

I really don't think HA is easy mode.

It's not easy mode to get kills, but playing on my HA a couple of days ago I couldn't help feeling very cheap as I could rack up score very easily by just shooting targets of opportunity. Even though you're not "directly" helping, you're still lowering the hp of those you hit, so in the long run each of those minor injuries add up. Especially since a HA can quite effectively run from any other cav type and dodge arrows if you're not going at full speed - actually varying speed and direction like you should do.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on September 12, 2012, 02:59:51 am

[...]


Thanks for that nice post, it's motivating to see people around who are well capable of discussing a matter properly.

Allowing people to switch between alts would accomplish the same thing, but in a different way. It would put the burden of proper team composition on the players and add another level of planning and strategy to the game. I for one would prefer choosing how I can best help my team, to having an algorithm take the best shot it can and sticking me with the result for four to seven rounds.

Teams don't need to be symmetrical to be fair. Does each team having exactly X infantry, Y cavalry, Z archers (and of course equal numbers of all the sub-classes you defined within) have a pleasing symmetry to it? I can see the appeal, but it seems boringly predictable.

Let people figure it out for themselves and you can have tactics that are always different, and teams that adapt to interesting maps which are fair without being depressingly symmetrical.

I see where your idea is coming from, but there is one factor which will prevent your idea of working like intended: the average cRPG-player.

There is little good to say about him. He is egocentric, narcissistic, careless, mentally lazy, arrogant, stubborn, and, most of all, kill hungry and has always complexes about the size of his e-peen.

That's why he will not, like you, choose the class which will help his team a lot, he will choose the class which is the most effective on a certain map.

Let's assume for example, that the map changes from Swadian Riot (it's that city streets map with the gallows at the market place, I think  :?  :?: ) to some random plains map. On those narrow and short streets archers and especially cavalry couldn't develop their their full potential. But now the map changes to the open random plains, and things change. A caring player could think "Ouch, open plains, I guess the enemy will bring a lot of horses, so I will go pikeman to protect my team" or "I could use my thrower build and bring an extra siege shield to protect our archers.", but the average cRPG player will think "Oh! Open plains! I will go horseman and rack up a lot of easy kills!". And suddenly half of the server will be cavalry, if not, more. We already have this behaviour with cavalry hybrids, but if you don't even need to hybridize any more with the character-switching-feature, this phenomenon will even increase.

On a hilly map with many ruins or a well defendable village for example you will have half or more of the server switching to archers.

And with the fast switch feature most battles would become incredibly symmetric by default. Because if on a good, but not perfect (still has hills and obstacles and more) cavalry map one team decides for some reason to rather go the archer way (I want to say that many players incidentally make the same decision - not like cRPG players would arrange with each other  :rolleyes: ), they will shoot the enemy, cav-heavy team to bits. You can be sure as hell next round the cav team will be an archer team as well. Not because they planned on countering them or the like, no, just because of the fact that they saw the archers doing well last round, and that's what they want, too, to rack up more kills.

cRPG players don't think within the boundaries of their team, they only think about themselves. In some way you always need to design the game like you would be designing it for a bunch of players who are playing multiplayer, but think they are in single player. Because you are.


Edit: sorry Thomek for that long post again, but I am confident PhigNewtenz will read it, and it's mostly directed to him.  :wink:

Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Tovi on September 12, 2012, 08:13:05 am
You loose too much and your multiplier stand at 1 ? So you want to change class by switching to your alt ?

Mmmh, let's see...

Disconnect then reconnect, 15 seconds max.
You were stuck at x1 anyway, what's the problem ?
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Cepeshi on September 12, 2012, 09:59:15 am
You loose too much and your multiplier stand at 1 ? So you want to change class by switching to your alt ?

Mmmh, let's see...

Disconnect then reconnect, 15 seconds max.
You were stuck at x1 anyway, what's the problem ?

You should not force people to play alts in order for them to have fun. I have created my main char to play with him, not to catch dust on him while i am forced to play shielder in order to survive more than first 2 minutes.

Guys, i really do think that the problem these days is: low populated servers. When there will be more people than 60-80 online, the cav stacking is not that big deal. Actually i saw few times when there was around 100 guys, that the cav stacked team got raped pretty hard for few rounds. All archers/cav couldnt do shit against 2hers and like LOADS of hoplites.

Give it few more weeks till people get back from GW2 (if they do), and it should get fixed  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Mr_Oujamaflip on September 12, 2012, 10:49:13 am
I don't mind Cav. HA are bitches because I can't catch them and they don't have to get close so it makes me sad.

I think the issue with cav is that they control the engagement. They choose when to attack and when to pull out and it means all anyone else can do is react to them, this then allows for easy ninjaing. You can say be more aware all you want, sometimes it's just not possible to look around you enough.

One thing I'll never understand is how people can struggle against them in a 1v1 situation. I use a Katana and beat a lot of lance cavalry, you danish using armoured dudes should have no problem.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: PhigNewtenz on September 12, 2012, 02:08:20 pm
there is one factor which will prevent your idea of working like intended: the average cRPG-player

Damn that villain! He causes most of our problems.

I for one don't really see the downside of people all going one class if that's what (they think) the map calls for. I would love to rack up points on my thrower with 8 Throwing Spears and one Bamboo Spear while a bunch of foolish peasants charge around a random plains map on Rounceys. I would also love it if this would finally get rid of the random plains maps  :?

Thanks for the responses; you've made some great points and I'll need to do some thinking. Perhaps I'll pick this debate up next time there's a reasonably well intentioned auto-balance topic. Until then, I'll continue running around on my bastardized lancer/1H/shielder/polearm main and helping my team out where I can.

You loose too much and your multiplier stand at 1 ? So you want to change class by switching to your alt ?

Mmmh, let's see...

Disconnect then reconnect, 15 seconds max.
You were stuck at x1 anyway, what's the problem ?

What's the problem? For one, you could likely be placed on the other team when you come back and potentially (if admins recognize you and your alts) face warnings and bans for attempting to circumvent the auto-balance. For two, if the whole (or a large portion of the) team where doing this, it would amount to the team that just lost 'spawning' 15-30 seconds late which could cause imbalance (either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on the map) in many cases.

Give it few more weeks till people get back from GW2 (if they do), and it should get fixed  :mrgreen:

God I hope so!
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Malaclypse on September 12, 2012, 02:37:33 pm
I really don't think HA is easy mode.

I agree with this statement, to a point. Yes, you have to pay more gold, though that's not really related to difficulty in terms of combat effectiveness. Hitting stuff as a horse archer, especially while moving, can be very hard (not including extremely close drive-by action). Killing stuff can be even more difficult. But like all cav, horse archers have the uber-W-button-into-enemy-to-score-a-knockdown attack, which is fairly easy mode. If it looks like the person is aware of you, press CTRL+J or otherwise stop pressing W, waiting until someone isn't aware of your presence/is tied up in melee, repeat.

tldr; the shooting part is pretty hard, the cav-as-weapon part is pretty easy.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: BattalGazi on September 12, 2012, 03:47:55 pm
.. But like all cav, horse archers have the uber-W-button-into-enemy-to-score-a-knockdown attack, which is fairly easy mode. If it looks like the person is aware of you, press CTRL+J or otherwise stop pressing W, waiting until someone isn't aware of your presence/is tied up in melee, repeat.

tldr; the shooting part is pretty hard, the cav-as-weapon part is pretty easy.

It is not much different from a 2H or pole guy attacking to another infantry from behind, perform a head slash and kill in 1-2 swings. It is all about the enemy not noticing you. We use horses, infantry use their swords. Having a horse does not bring advantage to unskilled players. Also I have to remind you that HA has no blocking possibility during a bump charge, so if your enemy notices you and you are still going for it, then you have to be really careful with the timing or you can die really fast.

And like those who manage to perform this kick during fight, only skilled cav players can go direct on to a facing enemy. Others just die on top of their horses, or bump their teammates.

Edit:
Believe it or not, bumping can be very hard in many cases:
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Siiem on September 12, 2012, 06:25:24 pm
Having a horse does not bring advantage to unskilled players.

What game have you been playing?
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: fdaslan on September 13, 2012, 11:45:59 pm
Just left a 15 cav vs 1 cav game and to be honest, situations like that just makes the game annoying and boring. A little differance between cav numbers on each team is OK but when it is more than 4 or 5, it makes the game unplayable.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: San on September 14, 2012, 12:49:04 am
No need to ruin it for everyone with direct nerfs to ability points and stuff. That will just screw up people's builds. In addition to more class-oriented balance, punish bad cav more. I feel like it should still feel balanced even if there is a majority cav on the other team.

Cav aren't punished enough, and sometimes even REWARDED for making mistakes on the battlefield.

I think a few simple changes would help:

-Horse receives speed-based damage if it crashes into walls. (crashing into other horses probably shouldn't be added in unless devs know what they're doing)

-Speed-based bonus damage when dehorsed (with a possible max damage maybe, like 30-40%) and/or remove dead horse body when dehorsed since it can get in the way outside of where it appears on your screen.

-Cav rider briefly stunned when horse is stopped (prevents getting off horse right when stopped, or attacking someone who just stopped you)

-Higher horse speed requirement for bumps and knockdown. Barely moving cav shouldn't stun people.

-Horse bump radius properly matches the horse's body. No ghost stuns/bumps.

-Couching more heavily reliant on speed bonus, slow horses shouldn't have insane power on couches, maybe medium-good power. It would also be neat to trade some power for bonus against shield so even slow couches break those.

Optional things to bring diversity to cav would help too for more anti-cav options:
-Increase lance radius on spears a decent degree.
-Possibly make the shorter lances sheathable


I don't think horses need a speed or maneuver nerf with some of these changes, even though stab U-turns are pretty annoying from an anti-cav's perspective.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: marco1391 on September 17, 2012, 06:18:14 pm
just for the record I played lancer cav from january 2011(when we had the upkeep patch and I had to change my char, the 4 months before I was an archer)
I almost don't play crpg anymore(respecced my char for fun to a 2handers since I think they have a retarded stab a month ago and still I've probably played 10 hours from that moment)

I can clearly say from an experience of over a year and a half that cav is simply op atm(and 2h heroes come close second).
back in january 2011 it was balanced since everyone had access to the "lol poket 1 slot 265 reach pike, don't you dare come next to me even if I look like an easy kill"
after the patch that introduced the slot limitation cav has always been op, back after the slot patch it was just redicolous(and any competent cav was able to outreach a dgs stab abusing the retarded "full right" lance angle from native)

after the lance turn radious cav was decently nerfed but it was still op, even me(and I was an average/mediocre player) could be on top of the scoreboard almost always using my champion courser and masterwork heavy lance.

and to all of you who says "it's cus u no aware idiot"to people who die by cav it's simply not like that.
a good cav can take 1 on 1 almost every class, and a good cav will be able to beat most of 2h aware players on 1 on 1 if they try to outstab you(only few skilled ggs and dgs user can outreach a skilled cav player)and if they block it simply turns out to be an endless lolbump(and some cav player can still bumplance).
and that's just retarded since cav main strenght is oneshoting and getting kills on unaware people or players occupied with melee close combat, and it's not supposed at all to be able to openly fight 1vs1 and win.
also now with an heirloomed destried you get so many kills off bumps that you feel silly for those melee players(I used a +3 destrier from when the courser was nerfed)
also the heavy lance gets redicolously good when heirloomed(it's a 12%base damage increase, as opposed to other swords, for example the flamberge get a 6.5%increase fully loomed)and the speed bonus makes the damage increase even more relevant, and horses are also one of the most worthy thing to loom.

to sum up I think those could be some fixes to some problems of the class:
nerf heavy lance lenght by 5 points(bringing hl to 185, l to 180 and ll to 175)
nerf heavy lance damage by 1
nerf lance damage by 1 to prevent lance getting too popular and bringing decent variety to cav
nerf bump damage slightly
give a moderate damage to horses that have to rear against objectives

other kinds of cav(1h cav)are balanced and shouldn't be touched imo
also imo the lance animation shouldn't be changed, cav duels are all about timing your lance to hit on the last moment of the lance animation and that was a skill implying factor that I always liked

ah and horse internal balance should be revised(every horse is simply sub par to the destrier atm)
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Tovi on September 17, 2012, 07:00:36 pm
Charging with a lance was a revolution in the medieval art of war.
It need "étriers" ( I don't know the english word) and a dedicated cavalry with a sort of guard blocked under the shoulder to support the shock.
Before that, cav lances were used, more or less, for close combat. The speed factor was low because the rider could be dehorsed or release his weapon due to the shock.

Heavy Lance ( as it look) is not realistic.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: PhigNewtenz on September 17, 2012, 07:20:47 pm
a good cav can take 1 on 1 almost every class, and a good cav will be able to beat most of 2h aware players on 1 on 1 if they try to outstab you

Where to even start.

First of all, the 'good beats most' bias in this argument is huge. 'Good' isn't very specific, but I think it's fair to say for the sake of argument that it represents the top 20% of players. 'Most' is fairly clear. It's at least 50%, and because we are talking about the portion of players that lose, it's specifically the bottom 50%.

Saying that a class is OP because the top 20% of it routinely beats the bottom 50% of another class is irrelevant, unless you're arguing that things are properly balanced. Better players should beat worse players unless there is a hard counter (i.e. pikemen in this case) involved. The top 20% of two-handers also routinely beat the bottom 50% of cav players, and no one (reasonable) is suggesting buffing cav. The top 20% of two-handers routinely beat the bottom 50% of two-handers, and no one is suggesting flattening the learning curve to remove skill from the game.

I think that an average skilled cav player would be at best evenly matched against an equivalently skilled player of most classes as long as that player is aware. To emphasize, equivalently skilled is the most important part of that last sentence. They'd be in serious trouble against a polearm user, most ranged builds, or any variant of horse archer. Say nothing of the fact that it's an infantry player's own fault if they're standing in the middle of a field with no cover when their only enemy is a lancer. A tree, wall, roof, hill, or  some water would be enough to ruin the lancer.

to sum up I think those could be some fixes to some problems of the class:
nerf heavy lance lenght by 5 points(bringing hl to 185, l to 180 and ll to 175)
nerf heavy lance damage by 1
nerf lance damage by 1 to prevent lance getting too popular and bringing decent variety to cav
nerf bump damage slightly
give a moderate damage to horses that have to rear against objectives

other kinds of cav(1h cav)are balanced and shouldn't be touched imo
If other kinds of cav are already balanced, then wouldn't decreasing bump damage and adding collision damage (I think that's what your last point is suggesting) make them unnecessarily weak? I think that nerfing bump damage would be a serious nerf to one-handed cav when their primary tactic is bump-slashing...

ah and horse internal balance should be revised
This, I agree with.

(every horse is simply sub par to the destrier atm)
This, I don't. That's an absurd statement. Coursers, Arabians, and the more heavily armored horses are superior for different maps and play styles.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: PhigNewtenz on September 17, 2012, 07:23:57 pm
Charging with a lance was a revolution in the medieval art of war.
It need "étriers" ( I don't know the english word) and a dedicated cavalry with a sort of guard blocked under the shoulder to support the shock.
Before that, cav lances were used, more or less, for close combat. The speed factor was low because the rider could be dehorsed or release his weapon due to the shock.

Heavy Lance ( as it look) is not realistic.

There's a child board for realism discussion. The appearance of the heavy lance has nothing to do with game balance. That said, I like realism. If the heavy lance should look different, take a stab at creating a new model for it.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Tovi on September 18, 2012, 08:15:32 am
In fact, you should not be able to use it as infantry lance. It's not just a question of appearence.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: OssumPawesome on September 18, 2012, 02:47:31 pm
It would be sweet if class could be taken into account during balance decisions, but I feel this is pretty impractical.  =(
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Sniger on September 22, 2012, 08:52:32 am
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Sniger on September 22, 2012, 09:12:00 am
imo:

i dont think cav is easy-mode comparred to so many other classes in the game. cav is not OP as such, cav amount is just too high and with that i guess we have a stacking issue - i totally agree with torben and the balance(r).

heres how i see why cav is superiour to infantry on public FFA servers:

cav dont have to co-op. cav can ride around (with very hi speed comparred to inf, and we all know how important speed is... right leoking + others? :D) on their own, picking out targets. infantry cant do that. infantry has to co-op on a semi-pro organised level to beat a stacked cav-team/clan, and that is pretty f*****g hard when playing public FFA...

besides all this i think a cav without a shield is plain lame. there, i said it (perhaps this belong more into the realism thread. cus to me, realism = gameplay. semi-lame examble: dayz, i love that mod/game despite all the bugs, id love a melee game completely realistic something like dead = perma dead, new toon and so on but hey thats just me :) )

simply as that. at least this is in my own private POV.

(yes i know i fail at capital letters, im lazy, so sue me. please disregard any noobish gramma and typos :) )
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Zlisch_The_Butcher on September 22, 2012, 11:36:55 am
besides all this i think a cav without a shield is plain lame. there, i said it.
Fixed.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Mlekce on September 22, 2012, 11:44:58 am
Only thing worse then cav stacking is ranged stacking.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Moncho on September 22, 2012, 11:54:22 am
Only thing worse then cav stacking is ranged stacking.

And even worse, ranged cav stacking
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Smoothrich on September 22, 2012, 12:17:22 pm
that guy had mostly the right idea, just need to nerf the heavy lance, I keep saying make it 3 slots and reduce its damage by 1 or 2, lowering its reach wouldn't be too bad either but all its other stats are bad compared to lance/light lance besides reach so need to keep internal balance.

I think horses are internally balanced and general cav mechanics are fine, but heavy lance will win 1vs1 against anyone but 190+ reach weapons and ranged which is silly with all its other bonuses like insane damage, insta kill couch, 2 slot so can have full melee kit, doubles as excellent support/anti cav weapon when dismounted

just nerf that thing god damn the damage statistics when posted are a joke, mounted heavy lance is like 20 percent of all polearm damage at number 1 (padded by damage against horses but still silly), dismounted heavy lance ends up being in the top 5 any month i've checked.. blatantly op!
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Carthage on September 22, 2012, 07:19:52 pm
I agree about the heavy lance since after playing battle and noticing how everyone always fanned out and were picked of by enemy cav, I decided to make a cav-anti-cav class(basically a horseman who sticks close to his team to screen and ward off enemy cav. However I tried to do this with a light lance (since that's all I could use atm and I liked the high speed on it) and I could never touch the other cav because their MW heavy lance outranged my ass to the ground :(. Which forced me to get one if I wanted to compete and serve my purpose if I didn't want to use it.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: San on September 22, 2012, 08:32:07 pm
The game would be so much better more interesting if the regular or light lance was most used instead.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Smoothrich on September 22, 2012, 08:46:55 pm
Thing is the lance and light lance already do a lot more damage with a lot more speed than heavy lance, and in fact are very usable.  I spent a while with a lance and found it easier to chaingun stab through blobs and do those quick pivot thrusts against cav from awkward angles that a heavy lance can't do.

However when it comes to man 2 man jousting or couching/thrusting at aware people, the heavy lance simply dominates on reach alone.  The damage values hardly even matter because every lance hits for tremendous damage doing max speed bonus pierce damage, and most cav just aim for horse's head which is a guaranteed 1 shot at top speed.

Think lances in general would need a rework instead of just tweaking damage/speed to bring their power levels in line.  Easily the most powerful weapons in the game when used effectively with no downside.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Arrowblood on October 11, 2012, 02:54:40 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VkGa9StKBd8#t=78s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VkGa9StKBd8#t=78s)
They have got the trick.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: IR_Kuoin on October 11, 2012, 02:58:06 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VkGa9StKBd8#t=78s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VkGa9StKBd8#t=78s)
They have got the trick.

Look at all those cavs ...
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Tzar on October 11, 2012, 03:00:34 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VkGa9StKBd8#t=78s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VkGa9StKBd8#t=78s)
They have got the trick.

Solution if you dont ride a horse respec to pikemen  :?:  :|
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Piok on October 11, 2012, 03:02:18 pm
The game would be so much better more interesting if the regular or light lance was most used instead.
Just buff speed of heavy lance that way you lower brutal speed bonus of it and lance + lightlance become more viable.
Title: Re: Cav stacking
Post by: Joker86 on October 11, 2012, 07:19:30 pm
This is how I'd like every round of cRPG to be. (TEAMPLAYYYYY!!!!)  :cry: