I wish this to be a fair and objective discussion on the issue of ranged(xbow/archer) in this game
yes but most of them are filled with hate from lobbyist and we could do with a compendium if these ideasand you believe that will be a different one?
there is like over 9000 topics about it still going on dude...
But we all know who started original nerf ranged topic 8-)
That's probably why I dislike throwing's current implementation, since many just throw in your general direction as quickly as possible, and the ones that are consistently accurate are simply an enigma to me.There are two kinds of throwers: those who throw their stuff at you and those who throw their stuff out in your direction. First try to hit you, second try to make any use of their ammo before dying.
2. Archery and xbow's are far to easy to pick up and be able to learn to use.
I try to stay as short as possible, to present my point of view.
Nerf is the tool at hand, and the best "incentive" we have not to play ranged.
5. Playing infantry requires a high amount of teamplay. In difference to the other classes the infantryman require the support of his fellow team members. If infantry players are cooperating with other players, and this group of cooperating players reaches a certain size, it becomes almost unstoppable. On the other hand, if everybody runs around like the average autowalker-Rambo-lemming, no wonder infantry dies like flies and looks almost unplayable and subpar compared to cavalry or archers. If the different classes of infantry players cooperate, they negate their weaknesses and counter all the other classes. On the other hand a single infantryman who has no overview of the general course of the battle is easy prey and already dead. This is the other side of the archer problem: the alternative is unattractive to most players.
The only way to finally get a grip on the ranged problem is to control the amount of ranged on the servers.
In short it is too easy to be good at ranged.
Remove Crosshairs for ranged
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I try to stay as short as possible
1. I don't want to say that either melee or ranged is easier or more difficult
2. Melee players can support each other with linear growth, which means that every additional melee fighter is worth an additional melee fighter. Perhaps it's even at a degrading rate, since there can only be so much melee players around an enemy without teamhitting everyone and his mother. Archers can support each other exponentially, which means every archers helps the team even more than the guy before him. It's the famous point when you have enough Space Marines to stop an infinite amount of Zerglings, since they can't get into reach. But there can never be a certain amount of Zerglings stopping an infinite amount of Space Marines.
3. This effect starts a vicious circle, since if there are enough archers, they seem OP. If they seem OP, the average cRPG player skills into that class/build, which means there are even ore of them, making everyone of them more OP. It's a self-fullfilling prophecy.
4. Since the effectivity of an archer is determined by the amount of his fellow archers on the server, it is difficult or even impossible to regulate their abundance by tweaking their stats like damage or missile speed. If there are less archers than the calculated average, they are UP, if there are more they remain OP. It would a bad and unfair solution. If anything, a single archer is heavily UP, if you try to be fair and look at his stats compared to an infantry or cavalry player.
5. Playing infantry requires a high amount of teamplay. In difference to the other classes the infantryman require the support of his fellow team members. If infantry players are cooperating with other players, and this group of cooperating players reaches a certain size, it becomes almost unstoppable. On the other hand, if everybody runs around like the average autowalker-Rambo-lemming, no wonder infantry dies like flies and looks almost unplayable and subpar compared to cavalry or archers. If the different classes of infantry players cooperate, they negate their weaknesses and counter all the other classes. On the other hand a single infantryman who has no overview of the general course of the battle is easy prey and already dead. This is the other side of the archer problem: the alternative is unattractive to most players.
The only way to finally get a grip on the ranged problem is to control the amount of ranged on the servers. As I stated above, nerfing or buffing certain classes won't help and is a bad and unfair solution. Instead the incentives to play a certain class on the server should be changed. I made a suggestion some time ago that a certain percentage of your XP is determined by the class you play. The less people on the server play your class, the more XP you get, and the other way round. I wouldn't do this with money, since it should not be made IMPOSSIBLE to play certain classes, just not really rewarding. Another thing which bothers me since I play cRPG is this horrible philosophy to want players to stick to their build. Yes, roleplay wise that's nice, but it's horrible for all the other aspects. If people could respec always or at least more often without those negative drawbacks, and if the marketplace would disappear (it's the worst idea ever and I am honestly shocked someone who can make a game like cRPG can can make such a decision which is as stupid as it gets before crossing the mentally disabled line.) and everyone could reset his loompoints when he wants to, players would be more flexible, the devs would notice unbalances much faster (since the players always notice them first and then you can recognize OP builds by their abundance), and most important of all: it wouldn't be so much of a kick into the face when your precious build gets nerfed or even unplayable at all, which is not your fault and yet you get "punished" that way without any compensation. Yeah, yeah, marketplace, I told you what marketplace is worth a few lines above.
I try to stay as short as possible
I try to stay as short as possible
I try to stay as short as possible
walls of text, walls of text everywhere
seriously guys, 150 words or less lol.
or at the very least do tiny summarys then put ur main point in spoilers
If we assume the proportion of ranged to be growing exponentially (because each new ranged player increases the incentive to switch to ranged), then a linear nerf to ranged isn't going to solve the problem in the long run but merely delay it.
It's a bit like a Malthusian collapse right now. Instead of exponentially growing food needs we have exponentially growing ranged pop, and instead of linear growth of crop yields we have linear growth of nerfs to keep the impact of a ranged overpopulation as low as possible. I'd rather see some introduced mechanics that would regulate the amount of ranged by naturally decreasing the incentives to play ranged as the proportion of ranged players grows.
I think the only reason we still have infantry players is that not all players are the same and far from all of them are completely rational when they choose which class to play. I stress that this is the only reason because I don't really beleive there are obvious weaknesses of a full ranged team that can be exploited by a balanced team, unless the map is completely onesided. I've rarely seen melee heavy teams win in any other way than killing the other team's melee as efficiently as possible thus outnumbering the remaining ranged, allowing a victory. It usually has to happen very fast otherwise the team gets whittled by projectiles and can't get a devastating enough victory in melee to be able to lose a couple more guys to ranged.
My main incentive to switch to HA was indeed partially the increase of ranged poplulation but more than that, I really disliked in what melee has turned into. High agi shielders and rondel trolls make my melee experience... well let's just say I hate to see medieval Usain Bolts, I'm not the one to judge, they found their fun and I found mine in return. I'm having an awfull time on my polearmer alt no matter how much I try.
The thing that would make me really consider retiring and going full melee again would probably be buff to the plate armor. Don't even care about the price, I lose tons of gold on the HA I'd rather be paying for a Plate instead. Like Kafein said in the current state and the incentive to go light and fast, ranged indeed have a bigger impact on the battlefield. Before I couldn't see myself winning the rounds off a horseback as a HA, but nowdays I am able to pull it off on ocassion (rare but it still happens). From my experience so far as a HA I avoid melee in general especailly the tank guys because I deal little to no damage to them, but by the end of the round I'm forced to engage them too and killing them more with bumps than arrows really, light/mid guys I can kill. I remember once shooting atleast 10 arrows into Tyrannosurus, he wrote to me in chat: no damage. If that was the case (not to that extreme) I would probably tank myself and feel really discouraged to pewpew, but the recent patch made the game go in the opposite direction unfortunatley and I never see this happening.
Make a knight a knight again, make him what he was in Medieval times and I gurantee you many will switch to melee.
Did I already mention conquest mode by the way? :lol:
The thing is that currently battle mode is about killing, and this is where archers and cavalry exceed. Infantry is more about "not getting killed", but since the game mode is as it is in the moment, they are at a disadvantage. If battle would be about conquering and holding flags, infantry would gain an advantage over the other classes (thoughtfull map design assumed, of course), and if the rewards for the game mode would not be distributed by the awfull system we currently have, but for example by being close to a flag, things would be different. If people knew that the fastest way to level your character up would be to play infantry, I guess this could have an impact on the game. Especially considering that infantry wouldn't need to kill all those archers and horse archers and other nightmare classes any more to win. I guess this would be another part of the complex solution we need for the ranged problem...
i completely disagree with the conquest idea, its essentially siege with more flags, the uniqueness of battle is that you have one life to do as well as possible and thus making that game much more exciting, where as siege i tend to jump on for a map or 2 and find myself bored because there is no real challenge to siege apart from spawning and dying over and over again. Conquest would be no more different, i still don't think people would swap class because they don't get enough xp, people will play the class they want to play and find the most fun, this is why you find all these agi rondel my old friends running around because people are bored of the combat system in M&B and find new ways to make fun. This is why a lot of people have changed from melee to archer because they have done everything they can do over a space of a couple of years in melee, of course the free respec did not help. The only way to solve the issue is to bring in a proper class balancing system or to Nerf ranged.
This is why a lot of people have changed from melee to archer because they have done everything they can do over a space of a couple of years in melee, of course the free respec did not help.after 3 years of crpg as melee player I think i need another 6 to master every melee
Make a knight a knight again, make him what he was in Medieval times and I gurantee you many will switch to melee.
Plate buff sounds good, not only against ranged but also cut weapons
We really shouldn't be underestimating the flaws of the battle game mode. It's my favorite game mode, but it's massively flawed. Battle is absolutely amazing for large, competitive settings, unfortunately, that's not what na/eu 1 is. Battle is inherently flawed for any non-competitive, zero class limiting system. Not only for the reasons above, but also because of melee & horse ranged interactions.
So far, this is what we have specifically related to this topic, that's already been voted on and passed for the next patch:
MotF spawns immediately upon one team's living player count falling below 6. All time requirements get completely removed.
Shield armor increase for most shields(should help significantly increase effectiveness against ranged and to reduce xbow penetration)
shield weight reduction for most shields.
It's a short list, but we're actively trying to work on this without significantly changing things for ranged classes. We've talked about doing a lot more than just these two things, but as of yet, these are the only two that have been successfully passed a vote.
i completely disagree with the conquest idea, its essentially siege with more flags, the uniqueness of battle is that you have one life to do as well as possible and thus making that game much more exciting, where as siege i tend to jump on for a map or 2 and find myself bored because there is no real challenge to siege apart from spawning and dying over and over again. Conquest would be no more different, i still don't think people would swap class because they don't get enough xp, people will play the class they want to play and find the most fun, this is why you find all these agi rondel my old friends running around because people are bored of the combat system in M&B and find new ways to make fun. This is why a lot of people have changed from melee to archer because they have done everything they can do over a space of a couple of years in melee, of course the free respec did not help. The only way to solve the issue is to bring in a proper class balancing system or to Nerf ranged.
The problem with unique spawns is that it is going to give an advantage to killer classes no matter what the gamemode is about. If you can just kill the enemy team and win that way, it's probably the easiest way to win.
So far, this is what we have specifically related to this topic, that's already been voted on and passed for the next patch:It's very nice to hear. Although, maybe a good addition to that could be removing/lowering shield skill requirement for usage? It wouldn't be OP since without the skill any shield would break rather quickly, but still helping against ranged.
MotF spawns immediately upon one team's living player count falling below 6. All time requirements for motf* get completely removed.
Shield armor increase for most shields(should help significantly increase effectiveness against ranged and to reduce xbow penetration)
shield weight reduction for most shields.
We really shouldn't be underestimating the flaws of the battle game mode. It's my favorite game mode, but it's massively flawed. Battle is absolutely amazing for large, competitive settings, unfortunately, that's not what na/eu 1 is. Battle is inherently flawed for any non-competitive, zero class limiting system. Not only for the reasons above, but also because of melee & horse ranged interactions
We really shouldn't be underestimating the flaws of the battle game mode. It's my favorite game mode, but it's massively flawed. Battle is absolutely amazing for large, competitive settings, unfortunately, that's not what na/eu 1 is. Battle is inherently flawed for any non-competitive, zero class limiting system. Not only for the reasons above, but also because of melee & horse ranged interactions.
So far, this is what we have specifically related to this topic, that's already been voted on and passed for the next patch:
MotF spawns immediately upon one team's living player count falling below 6. All time requirements for motf* get completely removed.
Shield armor increase for most shields(should help significantly increase effectiveness against ranged and to reduce xbow penetration)
shield weight reduction for most shields.
It's a short list, but we're actively trying to work on this without significantly changing things for ranged classes. We've talked about doing a lot more than just these two things, but as of yet, these are the only two that have been successfully passed a vote.
Edit: added * for clarification, battle will still maintain the same round time limit.
Only thing that I think should be done is to lower the amount of time you can "hold" a bow pulled back and still be accurate. After 1 full second it should be very inaccurate. I think that would help a lot with the ranged "problem".That seems like something hardcoded.
it's not that i'm not going to read it, but cba reading 18 walls of text to catch up ... if ur gonna write like 10 million words at least give little titles outside and put the rest in a spoiler
it's just plain hard to read a wall of text :3
it's not that i'm not going to read it, but cba reading 18 walls of text to catch up ... if ur gonna write like 10 million words at least give little titles outside and put the rest in a spoiler
it's just plain hard to read a wall of text :3
We really shouldn't be underestimating the flaws of the battle game mode. It's my favorite game mode, but it's massively flawed. Battle is absolutely amazing for large, competitive settings, unfortunately, that's not what na/eu 1 is. Battle is inherently flawed for any non-competitive, zero class limiting system. Not only for the reasons above, but also because of melee & horse ranged interactions.
So far, this is what we have specifically related to this topic, that's already been voted on and passed for the next patch:
MotF spawns immediately upon one team's living player count falling below 6. All time requirements for motf* get completely removed.
Shield armor increase for most shields(should help significantly increase effectiveness against ranged and to reduce xbow penetration)
shield weight reduction for most shields.
It's a short list, but we're actively trying to work on this without significantly changing things for ranged classes. We've talked about doing a lot more than just these two things, but as of yet, these are the only two that have been successfully passed a vote.
Edit: added * for clarification, battle will still maintain the same round time limit.
We really shouldn't be underestimating the flaws of the battle game mode. It's my favorite game mode, but it's massively flawed. Battle is absolutely amazing for large, competitive settings, unfortunately, that's not what na/eu 1 is. Battle is inherently flawed for any non-competitive, zero class limiting system. Not only for the reasons above, but also because of melee & horse ranged interactions.
So far, this is what we have specifically related to this topic, that's already been voted on and passed for the next patch:
MotF spawns immediately upon one team's living player count falling below 6. All time requirements for motf* get completely removed.
Shield armor increase for most shields(should help significantly increase effectiveness against ranged and to reduce xbow penetration)
shield weight reduction for most shields.
It's a short list, but we're actively trying to work on this without significantly changing things for ranged classes. We've talked about doing a lot more than just these two things, but as of yet, these are the only two that have been successfully passed a vote.
Edit: added * for clarification, battle will still maintain the same round time limit.
Siege is best suited for STR builds. Strategus battles/siege as well. DTV is also designed for STR builds, because these invisible walls made sure you can't utilize high ATH. Rageball is dead. What is left is battle, and imho should be best suited for AGI builds.
just have a proper team balance system that takes "class" into account. Right now class isn't even taken into account as far as I know. It just balances by banner and "skill" (if one side starts winning more rounds than the other team).
Only thing that I think should be done is to lower the amount of time you can "hold" a bow pulled back and still be accurate. After 1 full second it should be very inaccurate. I think that would help a lot with the ranged "problem".
That seems like something hardcoded.
tbh i agree the best way to counter ranged is to reduce the weight of shields by ~~ 100%
and increase ranged forcefield
tbh i agree the best way to counter ranged is to reduce the weight of shields by ~~ 100%
and increase ranged forcefield
This doesn't solve the problem, it's only a (not 100%) cure for the symptoms. Basically the solution is "We have too many archers. This means we should motivate the players to create too many shielders to counter this development, so that we have one half of shielders fighting the other half of archers."
ok, make it so if you've got a shield and the shield gets hit by an arrow, then you get healed
but if the arrow doesnt hit your shield but hits you when it's equipped, it's one shot kill
A totally crazy idea that would be fun if it worked:Stuff like that isn't very likely to happen. Regardless, with -5 accuracy, bows would feel like throwing weapons.
The server does a sum of all PD points that current population has and then reduces accuracy for all bows by one tenth...
So if there are 10 archers with an average of 5 PD each that is 50 PD total which equals -5 accuracy.
Stuff like that isn't very likely to happen. Regardless, with -5 accuracy, bows would feel like throwing weapons.
If making bows accurate creates problems by itself then the actual shooting mechanics are the culprit. Make projectiles travel slower, dip more but make them accurate.
It's really time to reduce missile speed, because right now it's just entirely too easy to hit moving target with this kind of projectile speed.
Don't underestimate the effect of the game mode. How many complaints against certain classes come from siege players? The freeform and the non linear way the rounds play out is what makes infantry struggle so much. But of course I agree to you, I like freedom and change in gameplay as you do. That's why this master of the field change Tydeus mentioned doesn't really get me excited, since its simply not enough.Yeah. We talked about doing more, but certain people were really hesitant to do much of anything. I don't much care for tradition and I'm probably too eager to accept change, so I'm all for doing more. I suggested changing the functionality of MotF, then having the flags drop at the start of the round. Things like increasing the radius of the area that can start raising the flag to ~ 15-20m(very large), then change how it is that flags raise/lower so that you only need to have more players within the area than your opponent has, to start raising your flag/lowering your opponents.
That involves a lot more work than simply changing MotF functionality, thus is less likely to happen(But I agree).
If I only had the skills of you and the rest of the team (esp. cmp with his WSE).... whoa! I would have made a version of cRPG where the upkeep system gets completely replaced, a commander mode, secondary attributes like charisma and intelligence, option to lead bots into battle, a team balance which actually works, and a lot of other stuff. But then I always wake up and then get up to fetch myself clean boxershorts. :cry:The answer to that will be simple I'm afraid: "get those skills"