cRPG

cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Topic started by: CrazyCracka420 on January 17, 2014, 09:21:27 pm

Title: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 17, 2014, 09:21:27 pm
Well?

I think it should be gone.  Interrupting your movement should be enough, as it is with any other weapon type.  If polearms (the heaviest weapons in the game theoretically) lost pole stagger, I think it's justified to remove ranged stagger (I think it should have been done at the same time as when pole stagger was removed).

If you won't remove ranged stagger, than I propose that all weapons have stagger added when you hit someone.

Look 1 vote for go, 0 for stay.  It's a consensus...remove ranged stagger.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Johammeth on January 17, 2014, 09:32:04 pm
Copy pasted from another thread:

For me, the only truly rage-inducing thing about ranged is having a good fight interrupted by a 3 damage stun-arrow that cancels a critical block/attack.

A high damage arrow shot absolutely should stun. A peashooter? not so much.


Solution:
Arrows that do more than 25% of a player's health in one shot will stun. Others will not. (The exact damage/stun threshold will have to be fine tuned, of course).

A couple of possibilities:
Damage over X% Target's Max HP to stun.
Makes HP stacking much better against range.

Damage over X% Target's current HP to stun.
Gives you 1-2 free "resist arrow stuns" at high HP, but not at low HP

Damage over X% of Target's Max/Current HP where X is calculated from their armor value (eg. no armor = 10%, full tincan = 40%)
Gives high armor players an ability to resist arrow CC, but not damage.

Damage over X flat value.
Crudest and simplest option
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: PsychoTwins on January 17, 2014, 11:34:42 pm
IMO if they don't nerf ranged then remove the stun. If they do nerf the dmg of ranged I wouldn't mind it staying because with lower dmg they gotta be effective somehow.

EDIT: Was too lazy to read above post ^^^^ Like that idea much more.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Taser on January 17, 2014, 11:40:49 pm
Copy pasted from another thread:

I like this. Still can stun but has to do serious damage to do it.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Leshma on January 18, 2014, 12:18:17 am
I'm fine with it. But if you remove the stun, weight of arrows and bows need to go back to normal values. Because stun is what allows archers to kite. If you're afraid of high ATH archers, there is easy solution for that as well. Raise bow STR requirements so that players can't have those 18/24+ builds anymore.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 18, 2014, 01:12:16 am
Raise bow STR requirements so that players can't have those 18/24+ builds anymore.

You can't do that without increasing accuracy on the bows and lowering riding skill for horses like the Arabian or Eastern because the reason archers and HA's get so much AGI is for Weapon Master and Riding.

Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Lord_Kitazawa_of_Voodoo on January 18, 2014, 01:20:06 am
How about a compromise? To me, the annoying archers are the ones with tatar and nomad bows. With high proficiency (agi-whore build) they can shoot extremely fast, extremely accurate AND do good damage. They shouldn't be able to stun people as well. On the other hand, I doubt anyone would be able to take an arrow from a long bow and not stagger for a moment. I propose that ranged stun should stay for the more powerful bows (long bow, bow, rus bow, and MAYBE horn bow and yumi). This would encourage people to use strength archer builds instead of agi builds, therefore decreasing the number of people making STF archers with 9 athletics.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Taser on January 18, 2014, 01:23:53 am
How about a compromise? To me, the annoying archers are the ones with tatar and nomad bows. With high proficiency (agi-whore build) they can shoot extremely fast, extremely accurate AND do good damage. They shouldn't be able to stun people as well. On the other hand, I doubt anyone would be able to take an arrow from a long bow and not stagger for a moment. I propose that ranged stun should stay for the more powerful bows (long bow, bow, rus bow, and MAYBE horn bow and yumi). This would encourage people to use strength archer builds instead of agi builds, therefore decreasing the number of people making STF archers with 9 athletics.

EH?

That works too. Interesting ideas popping up in here.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 18, 2014, 01:34:18 am
How about a compromise? To me, the annoying archers are the ones with tatar and nomad bows. With high proficiency (agi-whore build) they can shoot extremely fast, extremely accurate AND do good damage. They shouldn't be able to stun people as well. On the other hand, I doubt anyone would be able to take an arrow from a long bow and not stagger for a moment. I propose that ranged stun should stay for the more powerful bows (long bow, bow, rus bow, and MAYBE horn bow and yumi). This would encourage people to use strength archer builds instead of agi builds, therefore decreasing the number of people making STF archers with 9 athletics.

Say what? Do you know what the word compromise even means? The OP proposing a nerf request with no offsetting bonus and then you posting to nerf only one slot bows with no offsetting bonus is not a compromise. A compromise would be "nerf stuns but increase missile speed" or "nerf stuns but increase accuracy so it doesn't take as much WM to shoot someone at far range". Those are compromises, not what you are proposing.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Smoothrich on January 18, 2014, 01:35:42 am
Remove it completely with no compensation in buffs or exceptions for the high tier bows or throwing. No excuses to leave it in, balance or "fun gameplay" wise.

Suggestions to do anything else are from Bad players with Bad ideas.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 18, 2014, 01:44:58 am
Remove it completely with no compensation in buffs or exceptions for the high tier bows or throwing. No excuses to leave it in, balance or "fun gameplay" wise.

Suggestions to do anything else are from Bad players with Bad ideas.

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Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Lord_Kitazawa_of_Voodoo on January 18, 2014, 01:54:24 am
Say what? Do you know what the word compromise even means? The OP proposing a nerf request with no offsetting bonus and then you posting to nerf only one slot bows with no offsetting bonus is not a compromise. A compromise would be "nerf stuns but increase missile speed" or "nerf stuns but increase accuracy so it doesn't take as much WM to shoot someone at far range". Those are compromises, not what you are proposing.

It's a compromise to the argument between archers and melee players. Most melee want ranged stun to be removed completely, but most ranged want it to be left alone. So I said remove it on the lower tier bows but keep it on the higher tier bows. Is that not a compromise? (I wasn't quite that clear in my original post - apologies)
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Viriathus on January 18, 2014, 02:55:16 am
I think the stun should stay, it gives archery a purpose especially for team work, instead i think the dmg should be nerfed. Arrow stun is realistic and fun.
Any good skilled archer should use the stun on his advantage instead of just spaming arrows to inflict dmg.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: BlueKnight on January 18, 2014, 04:36:53 am
I think the stun should stay, it gives archery a purpose especially for team work, instead i think the dmg should be nerfed. Arrow stun is realistic and fun.
Any good skilled archer should use the stun on his advantage instead of just spaming arrows to inflict dmg.
Arrow stun is realistic and fun.
realistic and fun.
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Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Jarold on January 18, 2014, 06:01:36 am
PLZ
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Jona on January 18, 2014, 09:16:10 am
Copy pasted from another thread:

Can we please change it to something like this? Countless times I have been hit and sent maybe 5 feet backwards by an arrow... I look down at my health and have to squint to see any loss of red. Makes sense, right?

Also this kind of plays into Forsvar's proposed compromise, since USUALLY longbow, bow, etc, do more damage than the one slot bows.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Kafein on January 18, 2014, 09:22:13 am
"arrow stun is realistic and fun"

Fun as in Dwarf Fortress fun, yeah

It just pushes ranged to shoot into melee even more than they normally do due to their moronic nature. A reason to do it is frankly not necessary.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Viriathus on January 18, 2014, 06:17:38 pm
I much rather get stunned than lose half of my hp from a spam arrow, however, you cant nerf both things (stun or dmg), archers need to be efficient some how, so go ahead and choose one, would you rather die from a skip the fun archer in siege, or would you rather get stunned. And ofc the stun is realistic, have you ever got shot by an arrow? oh it stuns you alright, unless you are an orc from lord of the rings.

And one more thing, nerfing the dmg would make most noob archers give up and only the truthful ones stay, those who fight with tactics and team work (hence the "fun").
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Kafein on January 18, 2014, 07:05:17 pm
I much rather get stunned than lose half of my hp from a spam arrow, however, you cant nerf both things (stun or dmg), archers need to be efficient some how, so go ahead and choose one, would you rather die from a skip the fun archer in siege, or would you rather get stunned. And ofc the stun is realistic, have you ever got shot by an arrow?

Have you ? Have you ever been shot by a handgun while wearing a bulletproof vest ? Without ? Stings like a bitch either way, but there is nothing pushing you five meters away. Anyway if that was the case, the archer would be pushed backwards 5 meters too when firing.

oh it stuns you alright, unless you are an orc from lord of the rings.

And one more thing, nerfing the dmg would make most noob archers give up and only the truthful ones stay, those who fight with tactics and team work (hence the "fun").

You forgot get a shield lol after tactics and teamwork
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Hirlok on January 18, 2014, 07:16:07 pm
I voted "stay" of course, but would love to see 2 changes:

- overall slight nerf of the stun intensity

- make stun dependant on PD and shot distance
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 21, 2014, 10:42:32 pm
I just don't get why there is any justification to have an arrow or bolt or throwing weapon stagger you, but getting demolished with a bardiche doesn't stagger you at all.  I think getting rid of pole stagger was a great idea.  I think ranged stagger needs to follow.

I know this is a "nerf" to ranged, and I'm technically against most people's proposals to nerf ranged (they are already very heavily nerfed), but I think ranged stagger is just a lame mechanic.  It just so happens it's ranged that has this mechanic, if it was any other class I would be for removing it as well.  I'm not suggesting it be removed because it is specifically ranged that still has stagger.

I do like some of the suggestions that maybe only certain amount of damage will deal stagger, or only certain types of weapons do stagger (like heavier bows, or maybe heavier throwing weapons and xbows too).  But I personally think it would be better if all forms of stagger are removed from the game.  Having your attack or block interrupted should be enough of a "stagger" for any weapon hit.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 22, 2014, 12:56:40 am
A good archer saves a bloody rambo on their team, or the lone survivor of a small scrum from 3-5 enemy trying to run him down until he can make it back to the main body. It happens every round, but people are so wrapped up in their melee-centric world that 95% of the time, they don't even notice that their ass was saved. Most of them don't hit teammates more than 5-10% of the time and if they do, press the mutha fuckin ctrl-M every time and they will get their asses booted.
The difference between ranged stagger and pole stagger is that ranged can't keep you stun locked. It takes too long between shots. Unless of course you want to talk about multiple ranged, and then I will just say gtfo arguing about a 1vs2-5 situation.

Have you ? Have you ever been shot by a handgun while wearing a bulletproof vest ? Without ? Stings like a bitch either way, but there is nothing pushing you five meters away. Anyway if that was the case, the archer would be pushed backwards 5 meters too when firing.

You forgot get a shield lol after tactics and teamwork

Have you? It simulates your legs briefly turning to noodles when a 3-4 foot shaft of wood penetrates your body. It isn't a push back, it is you staggering back because your legs temporarily refuse to support your weight. Since you want to argue realism instead of gameplay.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Grumbs on January 22, 2014, 01:06:25 am
You can't look at realism in a vacuum. A Bardiche would cleave your head open in one hit regardless, or at least knock you out. Chainmail with padding was actually really good against arrows, plate even better.

Just saying, a semblance of reality is all thats needed, beyond that its gameplay all the way. Getting rooted to the spot by any projectile while any melee hit doesn't makes no gameplay sense and why have realism for one weapon and not for another?
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 22, 2014, 03:49:23 am
You can't look at realism in a vacuum. A Bardiche would cleave your head open in one hit regardless, or at least knock you out. Chainmail with padding was actually really good against arrows, plate even better.

Just saying, a semblance of reality is all thats needed, beyond that its gameplay all the way. Getting rooted to the spot by any projectile while any melee hit doesn't makes no gameplay sense and why have realism for one weapon and not for another?

I didn't bring up realism, so don't make it my argument.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Tzar on January 22, 2014, 07:20:39 am
Only class that should have stagger is the Throwing, there is no reasoning in allowing xbows/archers to keep staggering people, when 1h/2h dont stagger, an yes i know pole dont stagger as much as used too, but it still stagger for a brief sec.

Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Tristan_of_Erzoth on January 22, 2014, 08:01:24 am
IDK, I feel like maybe having the bows have stagger is a bit OP but as a dedicated crossbow man I thrive on that stagger. It takes me 5 seconds(I just counted) to reload my arbalest with 123wpf. The stagger is one of the few pluses to it(gives me time to reload which i desperately need) besides the high damage output. Just my opinion since everyones just talking about archery and not about crossbows.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Jarold on January 22, 2014, 08:07:09 am
It's even worse when they barely do damage but you still stagger right into the pit of hell.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Smoothrich on January 22, 2014, 08:08:40 am
IDK, I feel like maybe having the bows have stagger is a bit OP but as a dedicated crossbow man I thrive on that stagger. It takes me 5 seconds(I just counted) to reload my arbalest with 123wpf. The stagger is one of the few pluses to it(gives me time to reload which i desperately need) besides the high damage output. Just my opinion since everyones just talking about archery and not about crossbows.

Especially a weapon like Arbs should be long-distance sniper weapons. Any chucklefuck with 0 WPF who picked one up in a Strat battle can tell you how OP they are in close range since you never miss and you rack up kills with little to no threat for your own safety like no other weapon. I've had plenty of 30+ kills 2 death matches with 0 WPF. Staggering to give you more breathing room in close quarters is the opposite of how that weapon should play. If someone is close enough that a stagger is the difference between kiting/reloading and death you should be pulling out a melee weapon.

Stagger is stupid and sometimes gamebreaking. Try to fight in a melee line when a handful of throwers, archers, and whatever else open up on you at once. Since you can't juke mid stagger, you get focus fired and are stuck in place like an epileptic idiot. They do enough damage as it is without needing that crutch. Being locked in place because of ranged fire and having no way to counter it has no semblance of skill, fun, or competitively balanced gameplay.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Paul on January 22, 2014, 08:18:48 am
Your opinion about ranged stagger is only valid if you have an archer char with 10:1 or better kd rating(with a minimum of 10k kills). Anything else is ignored.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Lord_Kitazawa_of_Voodoo on January 22, 2014, 08:22:20 am
Any chucklefuck with 0 WPF who picked one up in a Strat battle

+1 because of word choice, even though I disagree with some of your arguments.
Regardless of conflicting opinion, "chucklefuck" deserves an upvote.

Your opinion about ranged stagger is only valid if you have an archer char with 10:1 or better kd rating(with a minimum of 10k kills). Anything else is ignored.

I guess I'll be quiet, then :/
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Kafein on January 22, 2014, 08:57:11 am
I didn't bring up realism, so don't make it my argument.

Well I didn't either, I merely wanted to respond to Viriathus. And indeed if you get shot and an arrow actually ends up in your flesh you are going to feel very very bad for a short time, but that doesn't justify a stagger when you wear armor with padding beneath it and are only mildly damaged by a projectile. So yeah I think some sort of more realistic approach would perhaps be better here.


Also I don't completely agree with the argument that because polearms can hit faster than bows they should not have a stun while the bows do. Recently the smaller bows are by far more popular and those can be shot extremely quickly. Not as quick as polearms of course, but assuming an imaginary scenario of some heavy armor dude running after a peasant archer with a mg42 bow, it could be that by landing all shots on target the peasant can kite indefinitely using the stagger.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Viriathus on January 22, 2014, 10:09:04 am
Theres nothing wrong with archery, the only thing wrong is that there are to many archers in the battlefield, i dont mind the stun or anything else.
So focus on decreasing the number of arrow spammers instead of making up excuses to justify your raging behavior when you get shot on EU1/NA1.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Lord_Kitazawa_of_Voodoo on January 22, 2014, 03:53:31 pm
Theres nothing wrong with archery, the only thing wrong is that there are to many archers in the battlefield, i dont mind the stun or anything else.
So focus on decreasing the number of arrow spammers instead of making up excuses to justify your raging behavior when you get shot on EU1/NA1.

Nerf unloomed bows and arrows - decreases the number of effective archers while leaving the dedicated archers alone.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Nightingale on January 22, 2014, 06:26:45 pm
IDK, I feel like maybe having the bows have stagger is a bit OP but as a dedicated crossbow man I thrive on that stagger. It takes me 5 seconds(I just counted) to reload my arbalest with 123wpf. The stagger is one of the few pluses to it(gives me time to reload which i desperately need) besides the high damage output. Just my opinion since everyones just talking about archery and not about crossbows.

That is strange because I just counted and got 7-8 seconds with 185 wpf to reload my arbalest...

Especially a weapon like Arbs should be long-distance sniper weapons. Any chucklefuck with 0 WPF who picked one up in a Strat battle can tell you how OP they are in close range since you never miss and you rack up kills with little to no threat for your own safety like no other weapon. I've had plenty of 30+ kills 2 death matches with 0 WPF. Staggering to give you more breathing room in close quarters is the opposite of how that weapon should play. If someone is close enough that a stagger is the difference between kiting/reloading and death you should be pulling out a melee weapon.

Stagger is stupid and sometimes gamebreaking. Try to fight in a melee line when a handful of throwers, archers, and whatever else open up on you at once. Since you can't juke mid stagger, you get focus fired and are stuck in place like an epileptic idiot. They do enough damage as it is without needing that crutch. Being locked in place because of ranged fire and having no way to counter it has no semblance of skill, fun, or competitively balanced gameplay.

While I agree that the Arb should be mainly used as a long distance weapon. I don't recall anyone ever racking up 30+ kills with 1 wpf in xbows during any of the strat battles I played in. As a dedicated Arb user I generally hover right around 30 kills if the team I am fighting for isn't completely shit. So its kind of hard to believe that every time you picked up an Arb in a strat battle it was an instant kill because I'm calling BS on that. The only people I can "One Shot" without headshot are archers/melee with either 15 strength or 18 strength and no ironflesh and under 45ish body armor.

I read that last paragraph of your post Smoothrich and just kinda laugh and think "Why can't I kill all 5 of the range shooting at me by charging straight in at them." The only reason you aren't capable of killing all 5 of those range as it is right now, is because more likely than not. One of those archers/xbowers/throwers are going to hit you by chance since you can twitch your body around as if you were having an epileptic seizure and stun you making you an easier target for about half a second so the other 4 range have an easier time shooting at you.

Nerf unloomed bows and arrows - decreases the number of effective archers while leaving the dedicated archers alone.

If you nerfed unloomed stuff all you would be doing is nerfing new players with no access to +3s.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Hirlok on January 22, 2014, 07:36:59 pm
If you nerfed unloomed stuff all you would be doing is nerfing new players with no access to +3s.

...which of course is not the case for armor, 1h, 2h, shields, xbows, bolts, horses, poles, throwing weapons... errrr, wait: EVERYfuckingthing in the game except arrows and bows. Makes sense they do not get any additional value by looming. Totally.


(((but on a sidenote buffing loomed archery stuff would be more appropriate)))
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Jarold on January 22, 2014, 07:41:36 pm
Archery seemed pretty effective to me using my unloomed rus bow and one stack of bodkins before they got the unloomed buff. It's just the people who sucked with bows cried and of course the buff followed.

The real way to stop the ranged spam is to let the hype die down and hopefully it gets normal again before the mod dies.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Dionysus on January 22, 2014, 09:17:41 pm
So, if this were removed and I were to get hurt by a ranged weapon, I would be hit but still able to move?
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Leshma on January 22, 2014, 09:27:46 pm
If you nerfed unloomed stuff all you would be doing is nerfing new players with no access to +3s.

We need more new melee players, have more than enough archers as it is.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Templar_Steevee on January 22, 2014, 09:53:22 pm
Ranged stun should be based on effective dmg (same we are getting points for atm)

Before patch buffing non loomed bows i were palying for lol with short bow and bodkins. I were able to kill few ppl every map and help my team even with shittiest bow.

Reverting patch buffing non loomed bows is good option IMO. Now ppl know that tatar or nomad bow is good with dmg on +3, so if devs revert path players who still want to play effective with those bows will loom them or they will quit archery and become otcher clases (x-bow probably).

Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Jona on January 23, 2014, 05:41:19 am
So, if this were removed and I were to get hurt by a ranged weapon, I would be hit but still able to move?

You will flinch upon impact instead of being all but sprawled out on the floor after impact. Now when you are hit your character essentially goes into the same animation as if you were kicked, the "stagger" animation. If it is removed you instead flinch, as if you got hit by a melee weapon. It would still cancel any blocks or attacks you were doing, and stop you from moving for that one split second, but at least you wont be helpless for much long... at least that is my understanding of this discussion. Being able to run and not even flinch upon impact would be pretty hilarious though.  :D
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Dionysus on January 23, 2014, 07:12:45 am

Right. Yeah, I could see the game without that. I mean, there's not reason to really compare it to polestagger, since that was just silly, but I don't see why that stagger should exist for anything other than kicks.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Eugen on January 23, 2014, 10:07:40 am
Short version of discussion:

[...]Staggering to give you more breathing room in close quarters is the opposite of how that weapon should play. If someone is close enough that a stagger is the difference between kiting/reloading and death you should be pulling out a melee weapon.

 If stagger was limited to high powerdraw / heavy (x-)bows / throwing heros and short range shots only its ok for me. It resemebls the hit person hunch over in pain, before being able to chase. Its risk vs gain kiting since the archer would be in melee without ready weapon if his shot missed. It would be terrible, if every lowlevel ranged could do this even at long/medium distance(can they right now? - i think not).

Stagger is stupid and sometimes gamebreaking. Try to fight in a melee line when a handful of throwers, archers, and whatever else open up on you at once. Since you can't juke mid stagger, you get focus fired and are stuck in place like an epileptic idiot. They do enough damage as it is without needing that crutch. Being locked in place because of ranged fire and having no way to counter it has no semblance of skill, fun, or competitively balanced gameplay.

 Maybe you should not charge such an enemy formation  :shock: . The effect you describe is being "pinned" by rapid fire. I somehow like it that something like this can happen if one charges without gauging the enemy. Maybe an advancing shieldwall could help in such a situation or flanking the enemy formation from another side, or calling cav for help or even counter fire.

A good archer saves a bloody rambo on their team, or the lone survivor of a small scrum from 3-5 enemy trying to run him down until he can make it back to the main body. It happens every round, but people are so wrapped up in their melee-centric world that 95% of the time, they don't even notice that their ass was saved. Most of them don't hit teammates more than 5-10% of the time and if they do, press the mutha fuckin ctrl-M every time and they will get their asses booted.
The difference between ranged stagger and pole stagger is that ranged can't keep you stun locked. It takes too long between shots. Unless of course you want to talk about multiple ranged, and then I will just say gtfo arguing about a 1vs2-5 situation.
[...]

nothing to be added

[...] Most melee want ranged stun to be removed completely, but most ranged want it to be left alone. So I said remove it on the lower tier bows but keep it on the higher tier bows. [...]

I voted "stay" of course, but would love to see 2 changes:

- overall slight nerf of the stun intensity

- make stun dependant on PD and shot distance

I would like to have solutions of both O.P's combined

Your opinion about ranged stagger is only valid if you have an archer char with 10:1 or better kd rating(with a minimum of 10k kills). Anything else is ignored.

ignored.

Cheers.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Grumbs on January 23, 2014, 12:25:50 pm
So, if this were removed and I were to get hurt by a ranged weapon, I would be hit but still able to move?

It would probably be like with melee weapons, you would get slowed down a bit depending on the damage. Just not rooted to the spot for a sec regardless what hits you or what you're doing (it even stops you mid flight while jumping)

About xbows...The issue here is people wanting their cake and eating it. If you want such good ranged damage/accuracy you should sacrifice more in melee for that. ATM you can use whatever armour, have no skill sink and have great melee weapons. You can use a shield with 1 hand even.

The ease of use of xbows should really interact badly with your melee potential for balance reasons

Just the usual backwards stuff we get here in cRPG
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Leshma on January 23, 2014, 04:30:27 pm
Today, that annoying YuRneRO fellow hit me so hard that I was pushed five meters back and fell from a wall. This "stun" is just silly.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Lord_Kitazawa_of_Voodoo on January 23, 2014, 04:33:23 pm
Today, that annoying YuRneRO fellow hit me so hard that I was pushed five meters back and fell from a wall. This "stun" is just silly.

I don't think the idea is silly, but it seems too intense in some cases (as Hirlok suggested, lower the intensity without removing it completely).
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Jarold on January 23, 2014, 10:21:13 pm
I would like to see someone come up with a good Pros and Cons list about ranged stun. Then we will see if it is truly good or bad. But we all know it's bad. :P
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Leshma on January 23, 2014, 10:26:15 pm
It is great for ranged, especially low level ones. Also precise archers can make good use of it. It's bad for everyone else. Without ranged stun, low damaging projectiles will become pointless. Right now they are used to interrupt enemy attack and stop him in his tracks.

Not sure can they just remove stun from arrows, it probably affects all projectiles in the same way.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Templar_Steevee on January 23, 2014, 11:47:34 pm
for me it's already some kind of different kind of stun from projectiles. Sometimes if i shot someone frome close distance he is knocking back after shot (probably really high dmg recived) and sometimes he just gest interrupted in movement (shot in arms for lower dmg).

about pros for stun:
-some kind of realism if you are dealing high dmg (if you get shot from heavy arrow it will interrupt your movement)
-getting wounded is not nice and if you are weak (low hp agi whores) and light armor you will feel hit in hard way

cons:
- almost glance shots (taking away few percents of hp) are intterupting movement
- high amount of armor is not protecting from cut dmg (it should IMO)
-stun after low dmg arrows least too long
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 24, 2014, 01:16:20 am
It is great for ranged, especially low level ones. Also precise archers can make good use of it. It's bad for everyone else. Without ranged stun, low damaging projectiles will become pointless. Right now they are used to interrupt enemy attack and stop him in his tracks.

What is the point of a pointless weapon? If taking away stun will make them pointless, then a damage increase to make them not pointless is called for.
For Steevee...No, no amount of armor should make you totally immune to damage from a weapon.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Jona on January 24, 2014, 02:16:58 am
What is the point of a pointless weapon? If taking away stun will make them pointless, then a damage increase to make them not pointless is called for.
For Steevee...No, no amount of armor should make you totally immune to damage from a weapon.

What I got out of their statements is basically that low level, low PD archers shouldn't be able to pick up a tatar bow and practically keep a guy pinned in place while only dealing 1% damage each hit. A low level peasant with only 1-2 powerstrike will probably glance more times then not against an averagely armored foe... no reason that low level archers can't be just as useless.

One time in siege I was getting shot at by this pesky archer who used a tatar bow... each shot he hit me and each hit I was stunned. It took me ages just to run the last 10 paces to the flag. I couldn't change course and chase after him since the clock was almost depleted, and so he kept getting shot after shot sunk into my back. The problem was after I got hit the first time, I was stunned. So now I knew that an archer had me in his sites, and started trying the usual evasive maneuvers... well it didn't work too well when I could only take 1 step in any direction before the next arrow came. I asked the guy later what his build was and he had simply stated he was relatively low level, had low str at the time but maxed out agi and thus WM, hence he could snipe me repeatedly. Now not every archer is nearly so accurate (thank god for that) but what really bugged me is that i was delayed... hit maybe 6-7 times, and literally lost only 1/8 of my health, tops. Sure, you could take that statement to a buff archery thread since I took minimal damage, but the real discussion here is why on earth would something so weak (was he shooting me with suction cup arrows or something?) be stunning me when getting hit by a pure str build great maul would only knock me back 1/20 times?

By the way your signature is a good representation of arrow stun atm, pappy. :D
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Adamar on January 24, 2014, 11:06:50 am
What is the point of a pointless weapon? If taking away stun will make them pointless, then a damage increase to make them not pointless is called for.
For Steevee...No, no amount of armor should make you totally immune to damage from a weapon.

Maybe it should. There already is such a thing as glances, especially in melee. So maybe the very best armors should glance most of the weaker arrows. It would be better than taking this mod further into the fantasy realm with no arrow stun overall.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 24, 2014, 04:25:25 pm
Maybe it should. There already is such a thing as glances, especially in melee. So maybe the very best armors should glance most of the weaker arrows. It would be better than taking this mod further into the fantasy realm with no arrow stun overall.

Quote
No, no amount of armor should make you totally immune to damage from a weapon.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Kafein on January 24, 2014, 04:49:25 pm
I think the reason melee bounces are inacceptable (and why weapons that are highly subject to those are extremely unpopular) is because having this randomly happen to you means your opponent gets a free hit. At range it doesn't work the same. An arrow that does 0 damage has as much influence on you as a miss, which means none unless that was for interrupting an xbower or archer about to shoot you or shooting a melee guy at a distance short enough to warrant you should be sheathing or dropping your bow and taking your sidearm instead of shooting.

However I'm myself more inclined to leave ranged damage as it is, maybe tweak it in favor of shooting lightly armored targets a little bit, but not much else.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 24, 2014, 04:57:30 pm
I still don't see any proper justification that explains why pole stagger was bad, but ranged stagger is good.  And I'm not trying to make this into a "nerf ranged" thread.  I don't think it was fair to call removal of pole stagger a "polearms" nerf, rather than a "fix" to the game of something that should never have been. 
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Kafein on January 24, 2014, 05:13:01 pm
Polestagger wasn't completely removed either. You can block after being hit by one, but polearm attacks still interrupt movement, which makes them king of ganking.

And yes removing its former higher body stagger was, "fix" or not, a big nerf to polearms. There's nothing wrong with that though, polearms today are not weak by any stretch of the imagination.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Jona on January 24, 2014, 11:09:17 pm
You can block after being hit by one, but polearm attacks still interrupt movement, which makes them king of ganking.

Any weapon type can interrupt your movement... I just yesterday jumped away from a guy with a short warhammer... it managed to hit me midair, and my character just stopped right there, above the ground, all momentum canceled, and fell straight down. If people are running away from me and i catch up and overhead them they are stunned no longer than if I do the same with a 2hander.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Byrdi on January 24, 2014, 11:52:43 pm
Is this only for archery or not.

I think stun is very important for throwing weapons to keep them somewhat viable and I can't really immagine someone taking an arbalest bolt without stunning in some way.
Though it seem like a good idea to remove the stun from archery and then revert the weight of arrows as a compensation since kiting would no longer be a problem.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Kafein on January 25, 2014, 01:04:13 am
Any weapon type can interrupt your movement... I just yesterday jumped away from a guy with a short warhammer... it managed to hit me midair, and my character just stopped right there, above the ground, all momentum canceled, and fell straight down. If people are running away from me and i catch up and overhead them they are stunned no longer than if I do the same with a 2hander.

Hits in midair are not the same thing. And no, polearms bring you to a complete stop while other weapon types don't interrupt movement at all. Although of course knockdown still does stop you.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 25, 2014, 03:22:00 am
I think the reason melee bounces are inacceptable (and why weapons that are highly subject to those are extremely unpopular) is because having this randomly happen to you means your opponent gets a free hit.

I agree, the amount of glances is ridiculous and the measure of a low damage weapon should be its low damage, not its inability to do any damage at all due to "glance".
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Smoothrich on January 25, 2014, 05:15:42 am
I agree, the amount of glances is ridiculous and the measure of a low damage weapon should be its low damage, not its inability to do any damage at all due to "glance".

Honestly, I think the game was far better balanced when cut weapons had a good chance of actually glancing against high armor values back in older cRPG. So people used fast swords to kill light infantry and often had backup hammers or picks to deal with heavy armor. Totally reasonable.

A couple years ago they totally fucked the soak/whatever values for armor that basically made cut do one half as much damage and pierce/blunt be way way stronger, but removed cut glancing. So in turn people went to full STR builds with great swords and bardiches to do similar damage and were the best in every situation (often still are.)

Now they nerfed WPF so basically everyone takes a million hits to kill regardless of build or IF because most weapons do pathetic damage against armor, unless you are using an awlpike type weapon or pierce ranged, which do relatively far too much damage on top of their other benefits.

Aka nerf buff fix armor penetration/soak values and you will find yourself with a more balanced game overall.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Awea on January 25, 2014, 07:18:34 am
Stunns make it harder.

cool.
Sorry.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Kafein on January 25, 2014, 01:30:29 pm
Honestly, I think the game was far better balanced when cut weapons had a good chance of actually glancing against high armor values back in older cRPG. So people used fast swords to kill light infantry and often had backup hammers or picks to deal with heavy armor. Totally reasonable.

A couple years ago they totally fucked the soak/whatever values for armor that basically made cut do one half as much damage and pierce/blunt be way way stronger, but removed cut glancing. So in turn people went to full STR builds with great swords and bardiches to do similar damage and were the best in every situation (often still are.)

Now they nerfed WPF so basically everyone takes a million hits to kill regardless of build or IF because most weapons do pathetic damage against armor, unless you are using an awlpike type weapon or pierce ranged, which do relatively far too much damage on top of their other benefits.

Aka nerf buff fix armor penetration/soak values and you will find yourself with a more balanced game overall.

Cherish that upvote
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 25, 2014, 06:46:00 pm
Honestly, I think the game was far better balanced when cut weapons had a good chance of actually glancing against high armor values back in older cRPG. So people used fast swords to kill light infantry and often had backup hammers or picks to deal with heavy armor. Totally reasonable.

A couple years ago they totally fucked the soak/whatever values for armor that basically made cut do one half as much damage and pierce/blunt be way way stronger, but removed cut glancing. So in turn people went to full STR builds with great swords and bardiches to do similar damage and were the best in every situation (often still are.)

Now they nerfed WPF so basically everyone takes a million hits to kill regardless of build or IF because most weapons do pathetic damage against armor, unless you are using an awlpike type weapon or pierce ranged, which do relatively far too much damage on top of their other benefits.

Aka nerf buff fix armor penetration/soak values and you will find yourself with a more balanced game overall.

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Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Gafferjack on January 26, 2014, 07:26:40 pm
Without ranged stun, low damaging projectiles will become pointless.

Not really. Even just the normal stun of being damaged is enough to make an attack that would have been blocked a hit. Additionally, it's easier to stun somebody repeatedly to prevent them from firing/reloading/moving/whatever with faster weapons (which are typically less damaging), simply because you have more projectiles in the air.

Right now they are used to interrupt enemy attack and stop him in his tracks.

You don't need rangedstagger for that, it just makes it ten times easier to line up another shot (or swing at somebody, etc). And, obviously, it makes archers (or throwers, or crossbowmen) on hills able to send you flying downhill at top speed.

That is to say, rangedstagger isn't an enjoyable game mechanic, at least for me and many others. It's like being kicked, except it has incredibly long range and can be achieved completely by accident and without intention.

Essentially, it's RNG bullshit. It needs to be removed, and any ranged balance changes after that can be applied if neccessary.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 26, 2014, 08:42:49 pm
Essentially, it's RNG bullshit. It needs to be removed, and any ranged balance changes after that can be applied if neccessary.

The anti-ranged lobby will just have it removed, then 2 weeks later be right back here lobbying to have the balancing changes reverted because they were "too much", "bring it down because now XXXX is ridiculous". Then after getting the balancing change reduced, a month later they'll be back here again lobbying to have another balance change reduced as well, or completely remove the one that "needs to be brought down to a realistic number".
It's a never ending cycle. No matter what has been done to ranged, the same lobbying group is always here trying to get those classes removed or reduced to uselessness. It has been going on since the mods inception. They will never be happy unless those classes are removed.  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Canary on January 26, 2014, 09:11:24 pm
Yes, of course. We ought not to remove a bogus, unfun and inconsistent mechanic because people will complain about marginally related changes when they happen at the same time as the removal.

Or it could just be removed like polestagger was without any kind of statistical compensation.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 26, 2014, 09:29:04 pm
Yes, of course. We ought not to remove a bogus, unfun and inconsistent mechanic because people will complain about marginally related changes when they happen at the same time as the removal.

Or it could just be removed like polestagger was without any kind of statistical compensation.

A great number of the players in the community don't buy your characterizations of that feature. A great number may, but it may simply be the very vocal minority that has always existed in the anti-ranged lobby. And if it does get removed, it sure as hell better not be replaced with "marginally related changes".
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Kafein on January 26, 2014, 09:33:23 pm
Did I see someone use a slippery slope argument?
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 26, 2014, 10:41:56 pm
Did I see someone use a slippery slope argument?

It wasn't an argument at all. No attempt was made to state the benefits or detriments of various changes. It was a flat out prophecy.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Canary on January 26, 2014, 11:52:07 pm
A great number of the players in the community don't buy your characterizations of that feature. A great number may, but it may simply be the very vocal minority that has always existed in the anti-ranged lobby.

Sounds like the vocal minority of anti-polestagger-removal lobbyers. They didn't buy that removing polestagger would leave polearms in a place to compete on par with the other melee classes. Except instead of assuming what you call a "vocal minority" is inherently wrong, foot-based polearms are the least used melee weapon on battle servers currently (that is, the least damage dealt comes from them compared to 1h and 2h).

(for the record, I was all for the removal of polestagger as a bogus, unfun and inconsistent mechanic and I didn't feel polearms particularly needed drastic, sweeping buffs just because it was removed)

And if it does get removed, it sure as hell better not be replaced with "marginally related changes".

It would be fair to have it replaced by nothing, in all honesty. What I meant by"marginally related" was that, in your example, if people complained about ranged after it received a mechanics nerf, it would be because of a noticeable statistical change to an item or several items occurring at the same time as the removal of a game mechanic; a change that wouldn't directly be tied to the mechanics nerf except in the perspective that it was recompense for the loss of a very significant game mechanic. A buff occuring at the same time isn't necessarily because of the loss of ranged stagger, should it happen. As mentioned before, polearms didn't get buffed at all when polestagger was removed. Only a few specific polearms have ever been buffed since then, as well, almost a year later.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 27, 2014, 02:08:47 am
If people complained about ranged after it received a mechanics nerf, it would be because of a noticeable statistical change to an item or several items occurring at the same time as the removal of a game mechanic

That's really an assumption that 3 years of cRPG has proven to thus far be mistaken. Anti-ranged will always be here asking to reduce its effectiveness, no matter what you do. Even if you reduce it to exactly what they ask for, they will be back in a month asking to reduce it more.
And I will always be here just as loud as they are. Anytime you aren't, changes get ramrodded through because apparently everyone must agree since nobody is in opposition. I'm not even making this up, many of them have admitted on these boards that the removal of ranged is their ultimate goal.
In the meantime, actual issues are not addressed because they are given what they are clamoring for instead of what the game needs.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: darmaster on January 27, 2014, 02:19:41 am
Honestly I can't believe some people are actually thinking it's a good feature; it has no reason to exist, just like polestun. 
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Canary on January 27, 2014, 02:37:42 am
That's really an assumption that 3 years of cRPG has proven to thus far be mistaken. Anti-ranged will always be here asking to reduce its effectiveness, no matter what you do. Even if you reduce it to exactly what they ask for, they will be back in a month asking to reduce it more.
And I will always be here just as loud as they are.

We could just drop the argumentative "THE ___ LOBBY SUCKS" attitude and go back to the merits of changes and stop being so dismissive.

Is your argument really to never nerf ranged at all because people will complain about it whether it's nerfed or not? I am having trouble accepting the credibility of what you've been saying based on some of your posts I've been reading.

Anytime you aren't, changes get ramrodded through because apparently everyone must agree since nobody is in opposition. I'm not even making this up, many of them have admitted on these boards that the removal of ranged is their ultimate goal. In the meantime, actual issues are not addressed because they are given what they are clamoring for instead of what the game needs.

The people who actually make balance changes haven't said any such thing, and they've typically ignored baseless and nonsensical lobbying as much as you're dismissing any proposed negative change or rebalance to ranged weapons based on some overblown strawman lobby.

I'm curious as to what "actual issues" haven't been addressed, in your opinion. Several changes, most within the last few months, have gone leaps and bounds to improve broken mechanics and remove outdated flaws the game engine has had since its inception. Balance changes are actually being discussed and implementation of changes are not subject to rare whimsy and select opinions without discussion any longer. Here you're not only dismissing the idea that someone might have a valid opinion because of what extreme view their idea might align with, but you're also dismissing the actual process of game balance that goes on and the changes that have been made and are being made.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Sandersson Jankins on January 27, 2014, 03:02:50 am
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I used to pity EU1, but holy shit we're right there with them now, except NA doesn't have the luxury of a populated siege server.

The main problem is that there is no class balance between teams in-game. Nothing prevents all the archers from getting balanced to a single team and making life hell for the other team. Ideally, banner balance should take priority, with a roughly 50% class balance in regards to cavalry and ranged players. This requires some amount of coding which I'm completely ignorant about, if it is even feasible/possible.

Of course, there's also the problem of the counter to ranged (besides lol git a shield scrub, which is moot when you can shoot under and under shields with bows/throwing, and through shields with arbalest) is more ranged. People get tired of getting hit by nothing but projectiles every single round, so they level an alt or get on a skip the fun ranged character, making it even worse for the poor motherfuckers that don't do that.

I can't think of a good way to prevent that problem, besides removing ranged from the game, which would be stupid. Ranged is great if less than 2/5 of the server is ranged.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Andswaru on January 27, 2014, 07:12:06 am
(click to show/hide)
.

Welcome to hell, in the free repec we got a while ago i made sure to rebalance my main melee build as a strength whoring ironflesh hero, nearly useless with a sword in melee, decent against shielders with my maul since people seem to panic when they see a mauler.
I can take 3 arrows and have a SLIM surival chance with my 63 body armour. Horsed range were nearly usless against me except for the arrow stun, will be interesting too see how this plays out now with the new changes to Horse ranged. Of course I still get 1 shot to the head.. dont even know why i bothered getting a helmet  :P

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Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Nightingale on January 27, 2014, 09:07:15 am
I was confused earlier when reading this thread, I thought you were trying to remove all of the stun completely... after I gave it a second look I'm fairly certain you are aiming to remove Stagger and keep Stun

Stagger - the thing that locks you in place for a half a second as if you were kicked *some times moving you back or to the side* (kinda bs can go I would understand)
Stun - Cancels blocks as if being hit by a melee weapon. (Needs to stay)

I think the best suggestion in this thread I have seen to be honest is the recommendation of making stagger determined by damage dealt by the shot. That way good shots are still rewarded for spammy archers. While making it harder for them to "lock you in place."
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Smoothrich on January 27, 2014, 10:34:44 am
I don't think anyone wants the stun effect removed where you can interrupt someone's swing or drop their block with a ranged hit. That's totally cool. The stagger is fucking retarded though. That's what people complain about when it comes to being "chain-staggered" by ranged if there's too many of them on a server and you are completely helpless if the ranged have enough awareness to begin focus firing the poor sad infantryman. Especially with fast-firing bows and throwing being so popular by the time stagger wears off with 1 ranged buddy teaming up with you, you'll be able to land another shot and continue the vicious cycle.

I haven't been one to complain about ranged or the amount of them very much when I play, but lately when I have time to play later at night with ~30 people on NA_1 the amount of ranged on a team is becoming really outrageous. Just feels like all the infantry are running around stuck in glue (my 6-7 athletics +medium armor builds feel great against infantry, but feels like 0 athletics full plate when juking ranged lately) with a half dozen or more camping ranged on high elevation or a fortified area just picking people off with focus fire one at a time.

Also when you are cav the ability to cut down enemy team's ranged becomes less and less effective when they have way more ranged than melee. Cav works great in a big, varied battle where infantry and ranged are mixed together because people focus on the main clashes and cav can pick off ranged here and there for the benefit of their team. When its a half dozen or more ranged camping together in a blob, far removed from the main engagement, you can't do anything without being filled with shots over and over from multiple angles and directions.

I'd rather deal with big blobs of heavy armor 2handers, pikes, shielders, or other cav, than having a shit ton of ranged players camping some shit place on a map. Its hard to win against and god damn it is not fun at all.

Hell how about a buff to Athletics? Ranged crap already weighs a ton to keep them slow, but I wouldn't mind everyone being able to run or juke faster. Would make more interesting swordplay and easier to juke ranged, which is becoming much harder to do now that people don't use Longbows and crap all the time.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Templar_Steevee on January 27, 2014, 11:49:53 am
and here is a diference, on EU long and rus bows are still popular, and i can see lots of ppl using them.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Sharpe on January 27, 2014, 01:29:43 pm
and here is a diference, on EU long and rus bows are still popular, and i can see lots of ppl using them.

More people in NA are taking those god damn tatar/nomad bows, and then they take a shield as well. Its great.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 27, 2014, 04:19:09 pm
I was confused earlier when reading this thread, I thought you were trying to remove all of the stun completely... after I gave it a second look I'm fairly certain you are aiming to remove Stagger and keep Stun

Stagger - the thing that locks you in place for a half a second as if you were kicked *some times moving you back or to the side* (kinda bs can go I would understand)
Stun - Cancels blocks as if being hit by a melee weapon. (Needs to stay)

I think the best suggestion in this thread I have seen to be honest is the recommendation of making stagger determined by damage dealt by the shot. That way good shots are still rewarded for spammy archers. While making it harder for them to "lock you in place."

Yeah the title was bad...I was using stun and stagger interchangeably.  I meant ranged stagger, not stun. 
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Hirlok on January 27, 2014, 04:29:24 pm
stagger must stay at least for siege and high pd bows :)

nothing funnier than shooting people on ladder and then see them stumbling and falling to their death...  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Molly on January 27, 2014, 04:32:03 pm
Nerf archery!

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Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Tzar on January 27, 2014, 08:59:52 pm
THrowing can keep stagger, anything else... well fuckit they dont need it :!:
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Rumblood on January 28, 2014, 02:18:09 am
We could just drop the argumentative "THE ___ LOBBY SUCKS" attitude and go back to the merits of changes and stop being so dismissive.

Is your argument really to never nerf ranged at all because people will complain about it whether it's nerfed or not? I am having trouble accepting the credibility of what you've been saying based on some of your posts I've been reading.

The people who actually make balance changes haven't said any such thing, and they've typically ignored baseless and nonsensical lobbying as much as you're dismissing any proposed negative change or rebalance to ranged weapons based on some overblown strawman lobby.

I'm curious as to what "actual issues" haven't been addressed, in your opinion. Several changes, most within the last few months, have gone leaps and bounds to improve broken mechanics and remove outdated flaws the game engine has had since its inception. Balance changes are actually being discussed and implementation of changes are not subject to rare whimsy and select opinions without discussion any longer. Here you're not only dismissing the idea that someone might have a valid opinion because of what extreme view their idea might align with, but you're also dismissing the actual process of game balance that goes on and the changes that have been made and are being made.

It wasn't an argument, it was a flat out statement and prophecy, or am I not allowed to express an opinion without directly providing evidence for or against? I've already given valid reasons for it to stay pages back. I think I can respond in kind to those who simply state "Just remove it and we can talk about anything else later". Who is being dismissive here? The guy who posted valid reasons in support of his position, or the guy who ignores those posts and jumps on the one post out of dozens that elaborate in detail with supportive arguments that I've made on the umpteen threads on this topic to tell me that I'm being dismissive? Well helllooooo kettle.

Actual issues?

Having HA aim being offset from the actual reticule has been there forever.
"Ghost" arrows have been in forever.
The target jumping causing an increase in "ghost" missiles has been around forever.
Jumping with a bow and sinking into the ground instead of doing nothing has been in since jumping was removed.
Putting your bow away, switching to a melee weapon and immediately jumping causing you to sink into the ground as well has been in for several patches.
The "stagger" animation that is being complained about in this very thread preventing another hit, whether by a missile or even sometimes a horse bump at some point during the animation has been around for a very long time.
That's just off the top of my head.

As for the balance team, I've seen the thought processes shared a hell of a lot more with Tydeus and he is making logical arguments. But it still appears to be that the balance team is only considering what the anti-XXX lobby suggests and not some of the better solutions proposed by several members of the community (I'm not just talking about me). There have been several excellent proposals that have gone ignored (no, I'm not going on a forum hunt for them now, they will pop up again.) Additionally, other complaints are ignored. The community has been complaining forever about how lame it is for xbows to be able to invest nothing, absolutely nothing into the xbow, have a ranged weapon with great damage, and still be able to roll a melee character on par with a pure melee character.

I think I have plenty of cause to have my opinions.  :idea:
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: San on January 28, 2014, 03:08:31 am
As for the balance team, I've seen the thought processes shared a hell of a lot more with Tydeus and he is making logical arguments. But it still appears to be that the balance team is only considering what the anti-XXX lobby suggests and not some of the better solutions proposed by several members of the community (I'm not just talking about me). There have been several excellent proposals that have gone ignored (no, I'm not going on a forum hunt for them now, they will pop up again.) Additionally, other complaints are ignored. The community has been complaining forever about how lame it is for xbows to be able to invest nothing, absolutely nothing into the xbow, have a ranged weapon with great damage, and still be able to roll a melee character on par with a pure melee character.

I think I have plenty of cause to have my opinions.  :idea:

Even if you can't find the topics for these "excellent proposals," it might be worth it to at least list a few of these concepts out. Just keep in mind that some great ideas may simply not be feasible under the current game engine and modding capabilities.
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Canary on January 28, 2014, 09:59:39 am
(click to show/hide)


Now is the time to be productive. Here's what I know about the way stagger works, please correct me on any of this information should it be false.

What is stagger? When a player receives damage their character enters an animation for being damaged* (usually strike or strike2). "Stagger" is a separate animation (strike3) which is sometimes called instead of the other animations. Strike and strike2 have a duration of 0.5 to 0.6 seconds depending on hit location. Strike3 has a duration of 0.9 to 1.3 seconds depending on hit location.

*These are only confirmed for being true for polearms (with the exception that strike3 is no longer called). What exact the animations a ranged hit calls are unknown to me as of now, and it would only be an assumption that they have the same durations.

Polestagger

Triggered by a damaging melee hit with a polearm.

Has a 50% chance to call the longer animation. (unsure on the threshold for damage needed to cause it)

Has been removed from cRPG on all WSE-enabled servers.

Ranged stagger

Triggered by a damaging hit with a ranged weapon.

For bows and crossbows: If pre-armor damage is above 25 has a 30% chance to call the longer animation.
For throwing: If pre-armor damage is above 15 has a 40% chance to call the longer animation.



As you can see, currently it is easiest to cause stagger by using a throwing weapon, and, at that, faster throwing weapons are particularly suited to taking advantage of it.

Polestagger was advantageous in that one could take advantage of its triggering by landing a followup hit with certain weapons. Ranged stagger is advantageous in that it is caused by attacks unable to be manually blocked (i.e. without a shield). Both were/are extremely powerful in team situations.


Polestagger was unceremoniously removed with patch .286 (http://forum.melee.org/announcements/version-0-286/). No major balance changes were made to polearms until months later when four new polearms were added with patch .0.2.9.0 (http://forum.melee.org/announcements/0-2-9-0-41138/msg639170/#msg639170). Several months after that, certain polearms received nerfs (http://forum.melee.org/announcements/0-2-9-3/msg734945/#msg734945), followed by some specific polearms receiving significant buffs during patch .2.9.3.2 (http://forum.melee.org/announcements/0-2-9-3-2/). The most recent changes (http://forum.melee.org/announcements/0-3-1-0/) to polearms have been a mix of nerfs and buffs.

Why does this matter? Because it is likely that polearm balancing did not generally take polestagger into consideration (with a possible exception of some of the "significant buffs" mentioned that may have been given to some of the weapons that felt the loss of polestagger the most). It leads to the question of whether or not ranged balancing is taking ranged stagger into consideration. If it is like polestagger was, it is an added benefit certain classes are getting on top of the statistical ways they're balanced. We'd like to think that it is part of the big picture the devs and item balancers have, but what significant impact would be made if ranged stagger were taken away, and how can we try to weigh it against statistical balance?



Let's compare it with other types of stuns:

On its own, a normal damaging attack will interrupt a player from blocking, chambering an attack, swinging his attack and will usually slow his movement but does not root him in place *edit: unless it is a polearm that isn't tagged with knockdown or a ranged weapon.

Knockdown is a percentage chance based on weapon weight and raw damage dealt (http://forum.melee.org/suggestions-corner/knockdown-on-small-onehanded-weapons/msg299353/#msg299353) to stun an enemy for a longer period of time than normal on a successful hit with certain specific weapons. It is enabled on weapons which can be manually blocked without a shield (although some knockdown weapons can crushthrough), and the maximum chance of it occurring (http://forum.melee.org/beginner's-help-and-guides/game-mechanic-megathread!/) on the heaviest weapons is 29.7%, with 5% less chance for every 1 less raw damage dealt below 40. A player who is knocked down is unable to attack, block or move normally during its duration. It lasts longer than the stagger animation, but it is now possible to roll away during knockdown by double-tapping A or D, potentially avoiding an incoming followup attack.

Horses can also trigger the knockdown animation by riding over another player. The knockdown animation seems to be the same or is at least similar to the knockdown caused by weapons tagged with knockdown, and you can roll away in the same fashion during it. I'm unsure of the specific mechanics that cause a horse charge to knockdown (whether it's based on damage or something else), but it is an unblockable attack that must be lined up correctly to trigger, and the horse's speed must be past a certain threshold (unless the speed is only significant because of the damage it contributes). Ways to stop it from occurring beyond avoiding a direct hit from the horse are to stop the horse by rearing it (with thrust from a polearm 141 length or longer), to kill the horse outright or to use terrain and scene objects to avoid the paths of horses. A horse-mounted player can not typically take advantage of a knockdown he causes directly to land an attack (unless he has a projectile weapon), but can often land a hit while bumping a player, whether the attack knocks down or not.

Stagger is a stun that stops a player from blocking, attacking or controlling movement during its duration (stagger will often have some kind of momentum of its own attached to the stun - I am unsure of what causes the direction and distance of the movement).

Kicks are a special attack which cause a player to suffer the stagger animation, or at least a very similar animation. Kicking roots you in place and prevents you from blocking and attacking normally for the duration of its own animation. The chance of occurrence is guaranteed if the kick lands, but a kick must be properly aligned with a player in order to land on him. Kicks allow players a chance to land a hit with melee weapons on a target successfully hit with one. Every player in the game can kick, regardless of build or weapon used (but not from horseback!).

Polestagger represented an opportunity to take advantage of your opponent when they had already made a mistake - that is, to land an extra hit upon its trigger with most weapons it was attached to. It was enabled for every polearm in the game that was not tagged as a knockdown weapon. Unlike knockdown weapons, polearms as a whole were almost assuredly not balanced around the presence of stagger.

Ranged stagger is a chance for an increased stun against enemies a possible great distance away by an attack that can only be blocked with a shield. It is enabled for every ranged weapon in the game. Ranged players cannot take advantage of a stagger they cause directly to land another shot, except possibly in the case of the fastest throwing weapons. It is questionable whether or not the items it is attached to are balanced taking it into account.

edit: forgot to include nudges. More information about them can be found here: http://forum.melee.org/guides/nudge-guide/ (http://forum.melee.org/guides/nudge-guide/)



For my opinion, I am not a fan of ranged stagger. Nobody likes being stunned. It currently has the highest chance of occurrence of any weapon-based stun in the game (unless you count horses). It is enabled for three classes of weapons universally. There is no defensive maneuver to avoid its results like there is with knockdown. The only active ways to avoid it are the same as they are to avoid any ranged attack: to try and dodge it, to hide from it behind scene objects or terrain, or to invest in shield skill and a shield to use and block in the direction of the person shooting. I feel that ranged stagger simultaneously presents too big of an annoyance and group benefit when enabled and won't change the way that ranged players operate or significantly impact their individual performance should it be disabled or nerfed somehow.

I was not a fan of polestagger, either, and I was very glad to see it gone, despite being mainly a polearm player. Ranged stagger is presently, in my mind, not as problematic as polestagger was, but there are several things that make it nearly as bad or worse in other ways. If ranged is to be properly balanced (and I mean balanced, not nerfed), I feel that ranged stagger ought to be removed as a difficult to quantify x-factor. With all this in mind, how drastically would the game really change if ranged hits only stunned for around half a second every time instead of sometimes stunning for around one entire second?
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Kafein on January 28, 2014, 10:33:27 am
You forgot something Canary. While 1h and 2h attacks do prevent actions for a short duration, they do not (or barely) affect movement. Polearms and ranged weapons still nail people to the ground on every hit regardless of the stagger animation that they cause, which is quite a significant advantage on its own.
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Canary on January 28, 2014, 10:45:57 am
Thanks for that. That must be related to why the information about the strike, strike2 and strike3 animations only seems to be relevant for polearms. Also, it is apparent that polearms with knockdown don't stop a target from moving the same as they never caused stagger before it was removed.
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 28, 2014, 04:08:34 pm
I wasn't a fan of pole stagger, and I'm not a fan of ranged stagger.  I generally disagree with the "nerf ranged!!!" QQ threads.  I think ranged is pretty much fine the way it is (the team balance is the problem).  People saying "ranged has no counter besides other ranged!" and acting like that's a problem, are ridiculous.  If someone can hit you from a distance, and you can't hit them, then you aren't a counter to that class (unless you close the gap).  That's the nature of Warband and what makes it so great.  Not everything has a "hard counter (in another class)", it's not rock, paper, scissors.  With teamwork and tactics you can overcome things that you might otherwise not be able to counter.

That being said, I don't think ranged needs any nerfs, but I do think the dumb mechanic of "stagger" needs to be completely removed from the game.  I don't know why it wasn't removed when pole stagger was removed, but ranged stagger should have been removed from the game years ago. 
Title: Re: Ranged stun: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Lord_Kitazawa_of_Voodoo on January 28, 2014, 04:51:20 pm
It is enabled for three classes of weapons universally. There is no defensive maneuver to avoid its results like there is with knockdown. The only active ways to avoid it are the same as they are to avoid any ranged attack: to try and dodge it, to hide from it behind scene objects or terrain, or to invest in shield skill and a shield to use and block in the direction of the person shooting. I feel that ranged stagger simultaneously presents too big of an annoyance and group benefit when enabled and won't change the way that ranged players operate or significantly impact their individual performance should it be disabled or nerfed somehow.

With all this in mind, how drastically would the game really change if ranged hits only stunned for around half a second every time instead of sometimes stunning for around one entire second?

          Speaking from some experience as an archer, I would say that the only time the stun "significantly impacts (my) individual performance" is when an enemy player is at medium to close range.  For obvious selfish reasons, I would love to see the stun be left alone. However, when trying to look at the situation from an unbiased perspective, it seems fair that IF an enemy is able to close the distance between themselves and an archer (or any ranged class), they should be able to put the bow (or ranged weapon) out of play.
          That being said, I don't think the stun should be removed completely. Half of the time, I shoot specific people in order to help my teammate (often clanmate) by leaving the enemy open for a hit. I consider this teamwork and I think that teamwork should be encouraged. Also, if an enemy closes the distance, I think people should be able to get one last shot off before drawing their weapon. It should, however, be their last shot. The stun shouldn't be so long that the ranged player is allowed to run away and shoot again.
          Even though I am an archer myself (therefore obviously benefiting from the longer stun), I would be supportive of a ranged stun nerf. NOT taking it out of the game completely, but lowering the stun time to around "a duration of 0.5 to 0.6 seconds depending on hit location." This would hopefully reduce the QQ and make the game a bit more balanced while still encouraging teamwork between melee and ranged players.

TL:DR ->   Shorten the stun time, but don't remove stun completely

Also, thanks to Canary for actually taking the time to explain stun, knockdown and such to the community. I didn't understand the mechanics of it, and hopefully it can clear up some misconceptions (and stop whining).
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 28, 2014, 05:53:23 pm
You'd still be able to help your teammates by shooting an enemy who is then vulnerable because they are no longer able to attack or block for a short duration. 
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Lord_Kitazawa_of_Voodoo on January 29, 2014, 12:33:57 am
You'd still be able to help your teammates by shooting an enemy who is then vulnerable because they are no longer able to attack or block for a short duration.

True, but not as much as if they are rooted in place.  I think shortening the stun would be a sufficient nerf to start with, plus they could always remove it entirely in the following patch if .4-.5 seconds is unbearable for people.
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 29, 2014, 12:46:10 am
True, but not as much as if they are rooted in place.  I think shortening the stun would be a sufficient nerf to start with, plus they could always remove it entirely in the following patch if .4-.5 seconds is unbearable for people.

Sure and I'd be able to help my teammates better if when I brushed past infantry they were staggered in place (if you don't knock them down with horse, but still bump them).  As melee you'd be able to better help your infantry if when you hit an enemy they were staggered. 
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: Canary on January 29, 2014, 03:05:44 am
True, but not as much as if they are rooted in place.  I think shortening the stun would be a sufficient nerf to start with, plus they could always remove it entirely in the following patch if .4-.5 seconds is unbearable for people.

Assuming stagger was removed and normal ranged hits were not altered at all, they would still halt movement for the duration of the animation (presumably .5 to .6 seconds if we can judge it based off of what's true for polearms).

It sounds silly when it's summed it up this way, but the whole issue is a matter of .4 to .7 additional seconds of stun that people are arguing over.
Title: Re: Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go
Post by: MURDERTRON on January 29, 2014, 03:51:01 am
Make it so arrows pin players to any scenery they're next to.

Also add fire and poison arrows.