cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Game Balance Discussion => Topic started by: kojiro34 on October 22, 2014, 09:59:16 pm
Title: The death of Horse archery
Post by: kojiro34 on October 22, 2014, 09:59:16 pm
Ok i must write something about this patch. Sorry for my bad English – lol. If you just want to says, "die HA" you can just be quiet. Try to understand instead of be a ****
At first i thought that the stupid ideas i read on the forum were never going to put in game. I was wrong but since none seem to play HA in the "dev" so they just seem to guess.
First of all if you played on NA1 you prolly know me and hate me (I am well know to kill all horses except heavy horse (almost impossible to kill) and I were somewhat “dominant” as HA (not the best) for the last year. I have done more that 25 gens as HA over the last 2 years and I were level 34 (now 37 in the currently state). So of course I had advantage over all level 31 and below build.
Pros of HA in the old state High survivability Mobility Many tactics possible if you know what you doing
Cons of HA Low dmg Low accuracy while moving Maybe 30 % of the map we are worthless Flag fight isn’t good for us
With a good shield anyone with some athletic and some skill could kill me. Of course I could kill him too with a shot when he side jump headswing me but it hard and unreliable (luck based) some player always killed me. Hoplite win 80% of the time. All archer /thrower/ xbower could kill me I could get couch or kill by cav but honestly I was really specialize at killing cav to help my team so it was really hard for them. Only the big heavy horse wasn’t really my target (I have 2 or 3 names of the players that I was mainly just tag them when they near but wasting 5 minutes to try to kill them when they were just ignoring me lol. 2 handed / polearm hmm some agility where able to survive long enough avoiding all arrows but it only a matter of time if they alone I will kill them if I have enough arrows otherwise they should always win when out of arrows. Other HA usually a joke and I was always focusing on them first since they usually an easy kill for me if they was alone (but of course something I got killed by them )
All of this was before the patch – but yeah with the raising of the level we could all use a little balance I guess but not like this. I saw more HA in the past weeks but only few were good good enough to do something.
Now Level 37 HA 15-30 and I can barely kill a player 3-5 kills for 4 to 7 round and my horse kill them. With a map with many horses I can still top the board but well…. Like I said it was always my strongest skill. The fact: 5 or 6 PD I must hit 8 times in the torso someone with 50-55 armor (using bodkin but same with tartar) so it’s more than 1 bodkin stack to kill 1 person (with armor and full health of course) and I have 49 arrows…. And I cant HS anymore people… The nerf : 1) Lowering the speed of horse by 20 %..... ok, but everyone should get it (athletic too), since the base speed of horse is higher everything will be slower and even more the horse. Some people run faster than me horse… lol almost. I can live with it. 2) Lowering the ammo: ouch it really hurt my dmg output because if you don’t know yet HA must fire all the time to hit people we miss a lot of our arrows when we are on horse and moving. Again, I could live with this since it make some funny thing happening at the end of the round where I must take a weapon to finish the fight. BUT you have ot fix the damn bug where when I grab an arrow i drop every other arrows…. 3) Lowering the dmg of bows by 2 points… hmm some bows are useless now and I don’t understand the idea between this… people use bigger armor (not always I agree), more athletic, more IF, more shield, etc and us we getting less dmg… you already nerfing the dmg output with the ammo. No point for this 4) 20 % reduction from been mounted (it already 20 % I think or 10% ….) come on, our dmg output is already negligible and now you still nerfing it. We cannot stack power draw if you didn’t knew, we need HA/HR so wtf… sorry but I cannot put 8 power draw. It was never our dmg the problem.
5) Dmg capped to 15 6) The weight : no effect on us. The solution : 1) I think a proper ways to handle archery was to reduce the number of arrows since it reduce the survivability of HA, his dmg output and it’ applied to archery. 2) I could live with the speed nerf of the horse but everyone should be nerfed with a speed nerf (agility whore too) For the rest it make the class unplayable and no fun at all and again I can live with some adjustments but if you want a melee god only game, just remove the class or lower our upkeep and give us a x3 exp base minimum so atleast if our class is weak we can get exp and make money. Even if I can kill more players with my 2 handed (and I suck as mele) I find it no interesting in term of gameplay. That really your choice: making a decent game for everyone or just stick with your mele /cav fan boy club but let us know. Kojiro
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: Voncrow on October 23, 2014, 02:12:38 am
You know they maximized damage of Horse Range to 15 damage right? A lot more than 10 or 20 percent. Also the biggest problem with horse archers they left, that they delay and are fucking huge trolls about it. I would much more prefer you revert them and just have all horses die whenever flags spawn, is that possible?
I was really specialize at killing cav to help my team so it was really hard for them.
The balancers don't seem to be terribly concerned about teamwork or class counters. Specific focus on melee survivability has been the thing for quite awhile, but this patch has really fucked archery. Especially horse archery. I hate horse archers, and I really fucking hate you in NA1, Kojiro, but some of these changes are totally fucked.
Didn't realize you made this thread though, otherwise I'd have probably just chimed in here, but if you'd like to go voice your opinions or whatever in my thread, here's the link. (http://forum.melee.org/game-balance-discussion/thoughts-on-4-0-archery-nerf-and-class-counters/)
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: Soldier_of_God on October 23, 2014, 07:28:24 am
I'll admit that this patch really killed horse archers, but truly i don't miss them. Perhaps though, maybe the penalties should be dialed back a bit.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: Xeen on October 24, 2014, 09:43:44 am
I made a brand new bow today just so we could do extensive testing with Drakanis. The class seems unplayably bad now, particularly at what I think the class is least gay and most useful at doing, killing other cavalry. He shot one of our chargers like 5 times and it was only at 90% health. I saw him shoot an agility build player many, many times to no avail on multiple occasions, as well.
I actually think the slowdown was a fantastic stand-alone nerf and I would be totally fine if HA never did good damage to infantry again. However, them being shitty at bringing down really good cav players who are otherwise pretty untouchable really hurts the game in my opinion.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: kojiro34 on October 24, 2014, 08:00:55 pm
Quote
For all the reasons stated in the past. HA(horse ranged) will henceforth remain, intentionally, the least effective class in this mod. There is very likely room for buffs from where they are now, but everyone needs to keep the previous statement in mind.
Tydius
OK, it's "almost" clear but HA was already 1 of the the least effective class (level wise / skill wise), I dont mind to not be a god mod, we want a ways to be effective with this playstyle.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: Lichen on October 24, 2014, 09:11:11 pm
We cannot stack power draw if you didn’t knew, we need HA/HR so wtf… sorry but I cannot put 8 power draw. It was never our dmg the problem.
5) Dmg capped to 15
You can still get 4 HA with 8 powerdraw. You just have to have lower weaponmaster or riding. Try that with yumi bow. So damage will probably be 15 on most hits with that.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: lombardsoup on October 24, 2014, 09:24:41 pm
How to be effective with HA: don't play the class
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: Dezilagel on October 24, 2014, 10:20:52 pm
Die HA
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on October 25, 2014, 12:45:29 am
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: kojiro34 on October 25, 2014, 07:14:08 am
You can still get 4 HA with 8 powerdraw. You just have to have lower weaponmaster or riding. Try that with yumi bow. So damage will probably be 15 on most hits with that.
hmm you tried it ? it mean around 70 weapon prof at 35.... and be a slow ass rider.... but yea i should be able to kill the medium and low armor in 4 or 5 shots.. Come on man....
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: kojiro34 on October 25, 2014, 07:16:58 am
I dont know whyt i cannot (lies) top the board as level 37 HA with 25 gen and i can top it as a polearm/2 handed level 32 first gen.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on October 25, 2014, 07:35:21 am
Because haters gunna hate
I will not apologies for posting Taylor Swift, eat a dick! SHAKE IT OFF!
Damage cap is before or after headshot multiplier? If after, that is fucking ridiculous.
After, max damage output is 15 no matter what you do. Speed + PD + head = 15 max.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: San on November 01, 2014, 01:27:59 am
In addition to Tydeus increasing/possibly removing the cap, I was able to get variable speeds to work based on your equipped weapon.
Ranged equipped = 80% Ranged in inventory but not equipped = 90% No ranged = 100% Donkey = 100%
There is no trigger for dropping, so you have to switch to a melee weapon to get the 100%.
This is tentative, since I have to propose the idea for acceptance. There will be some more strategy instead of no hope at all against other cav by out-skilling them at their own game. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work for throwing alt modes. That's always treated as ranged.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: BlindGuy on November 01, 2014, 02:35:14 am
In addition to Tydeus increasing/possibly removing the cap, I was able to get variable speeds to work based on your equipped weapon.
Ranged equipped = 80% Ranged in inventory but not equipped = 90% No ranged = 100% Donkey = 100%
There is no trigger for dropping, so you have to switch to a melee weapon to get the 100%.
This is tentative, since I have to propose the idea for acceptance. There will be some more strategy instead of no hope at all against other cav by out-skilling them at their own game. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work for throwing alt modes. That's always treated as ranged.
That's pretty cool.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on November 01, 2014, 06:28:32 am
In addition to Tydeus increasing/possibly removing the cap, I was able to get variable speeds to work based on your equipped weapon.
Ranged equipped = 80% Ranged in inventory but not equipped = 90% No ranged = 100% Donkey = 100%
There is no trigger for dropping, so you have to switch to a melee weapon to get the 100%.
This is tentative, since I have to propose the idea for acceptance. There will be some more strategy instead of no hope at all against other cav by out-skilling them at their own game. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work for throwing alt modes. That's always treated as ranged.
That's a nice compromise. Could it work by sheathing the weapon? That cut to horse is one of the biggest hits. The 15 dmg cap and the horse jiggering are almost perfectly even for me as far as fun killing goes.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: San on November 01, 2014, 06:37:31 am
Yep, sheathing the weapon would give 90%, enough to deal with other horsemen if you have +1 riding compared to them. If a guy does this when last on the field, that's a good enough excuse for an admin to warn :), best to just switch to a melee weapon.
For some reason, using all your ammo with throwing only gives 90%, so you'll have to switch to a melee weapon or pick one up to get 100%.
Only a few more votes needed.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: Macropus on November 02, 2014, 06:38:33 pm
For some reason, using all your ammo with throwing only gives 90%, so you'll have to switch to a melee weapon or pick one up to get 100%.
The game counts it like you still have it, even after you run out of ammo. Not sure if the weight is applied, but, for example, on a duel server if you throw all your stuff before duel, then win a duel, your ammo gets replenished. So it could be that even switching to melee weapon wouldn't help, as the empty throwing slots would count as sheathed.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: San on November 02, 2014, 07:15:46 pm
I got it to work now. The 0 ammo check only occurred when picking up a new item. I added it to the unwield trigger which happens after using all of your ammo, so it'll drop your ghost ammo when you run out. If you have two stacks, you need to use up all of your ammo or switch weapons after using 1 stack.
Edit: Automatic for throwing, but you need to switch/sheathe afterwards for archery and xbow. Also, sometimes you'll have 2 stacks with only a few ammo each, and will incur the weight penalty for both no matter what.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: kojiro34 on November 07, 2014, 06:48:42 am
Hmm honestly i am to new theses changes, but right now the game suck. I have NO ability in mele but i am most of the time 1//3 and i get mele valor 2 or 3 times when i play Pole Arm or 2 handed...... WTF... Of course i was often of the 1/3 in top score or even 1st ( iam some time in mele) But fuck i spend 2 years.... To learn it. Now i see only 2 handed spammer or cav.... Come on guys... If you suck at 1 style dont nerf it.
* sorry was drunk lol
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: BlindGuy on November 07, 2014, 02:49:28 pm
Kojiro: Horse archery should be rebuffed, if we could get some realism changes: arrows at angles completely glancing off plate, often mail aswell, horses refusing to trample men, horses taking damage from bumping into stuff/people, horses tiring, and best of all permanent skeleton deformation for the player using horse archery.
Horse archery wasnt nerfed because devs suck at it: its archery, but even less demanding in terms of awareness and strategy, since prior to this patch the only real danger to a HA was crossbows, since a smart guy with high riding can avoid arrows with ease if he doesn't get greedy, and being able to shoot a player on foot AFTER your horse has bumped him down is beyond retarded. It was an easy class played by scumcunts, and your defence of it puts you firmly inside that description.
If you can "of course" as you put it always do so amazingly well in melee then be happy! Im happy for you that you are so amazing at polearms.
The only real surprise to me is that horse crossbows still exist at all since without very specialised crossbows, riding at speed while reloading a crossbow of any meaningful size would be next to impossible without mechanical aids, and having your bolt rest safely in your groove while galloping would demand crossbows of which there is no historical evidence: I am of the opinion that noone did it, since a crossbow that you can knock one handed is not going to have the power and accuracy to make it effective at anything but hunting squirrels from very close range.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: Soldier_of_God on November 07, 2014, 08:57:08 pm
This must be pretty evil of me, but I don't miss horse archers one bit. I really wish it would stay the same just because horse archery is gay.
HOWEVER
the balancing really does suck, and i'd say a 20% damage and speed nerf is much more reasonable than a 15 damage cap. any good horse lancer can catch up at that speed, archers cant machine gun off arrows, and damage is at a reasonable level. The arrow limiting helps a lot too, but i'd make all bows 2 slot, and buff the accuracy a bit overall. maybe the damage too, just a little bit. It hardly seems balanced for foot archers at the moment either.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: San on November 08, 2014, 12:18:07 am
If you make the bows 2 slots, the cheap bows will lose one of their best advantages over the other ones. A similar problem arose when I proposed making all arrows 2 slots with more ammo except for the cheapest ones.
I removed the damage cap for next patch and also added the stuff that makes you faster if you equip a melee weapon or drop your ranged gear. The 20% damage penalty is still in place, though, just to go one step at a time.
So, it's 80% speed while having the ranged weapon out, 90% when sheathed, and 100% when having no ranged weapons. You may need to switch to a weapon after dropping to trigger the speed increase. Maneuver/acceleration seems to be unchanged or minimally changed, couldn't tell much of a difference. This will make horse ranged good against other light horses (no 20% penalty to horses), ranged, and agi builds. You may get chased down with the ranged equipment out, so you'll need above average riding or melee proficiency when forced to switch.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: Ikarus on November 08, 2014, 03:07:18 am
my arch-enemy is close to extinction
my destiny is almost fulfilled
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on November 08, 2014, 12:14:53 pm
Blind HA is actually a very difficult class to play with any level of success and it requires huge quantities of battle field awareness, not less. With archery I just keep myself near the blob of infantry and then make sure I've not got cav flying up my arse, it's pretty bloody easy.
Wiith HA you have to be constantly aware of the position of everyone on the field all the time. If you come into melee contact with infantry, your dead, same goes for cav. If you come into contact with range you or your horse are dead unless they are terrible. You have a limited number of legitimate targets and everything can kill you if it gets with in range of you often in one or two hits. On top of that targeting requires a lot of concentration and once you do that you instantly loose focus on what's going on around you.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: Zergmar on November 08, 2014, 01:18:00 pm
I was gone for 2 years and I noticed how Cav as a whole got nerfed, including my own class: "heavy lance" cav. So I stopped playing it, although some people still make it viable, but that's dedication and skill. But I'm not gonna bitch about losing my favorite OP class, because I can see past my selfishness and understand that with rebalancing of the broken shit the game now is much more enjoyable for everyone else.
PS. Horse Archers were always a broken bullshit class which spent more time delaying than playing.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on November 09, 2014, 11:29:22 pm
Eat a dick merchant of bullshit.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: BlindGuy on November 10, 2014, 03:37:01 am
I thought AUS server died from lack of players? If I'm wrong I'm sorry, but I havent seen it in ages in the server list... and if I am right and its gone: WTF are you posting for Frank? The input of someone with 200+ ping is hardly valid or needed.
Blind HA is actually a very difficult class to play with any level of success and it requires huge quantities of battle field awareness, not less. With archery I just keep myself near the blob of infantry and then make sure I've not got cav flying up my arse, it's pretty bloody easy.
Wiith HA you have to be constantly aware of the position of everyone on the field all the time. If you come into melee contact with infantry, your dead, same goes for cav. If you come into contact with range you or your horse are dead unless they are terrible. You have a limited number of legitimate targets and everything can kill you if it gets with in range of you often in one or two hits. On top of that targeting requires a lot of concentration and once you do that you instantly loose focus on what's going on around you.
First: I dont see how coming into contact with enemy infantry or cavalry doesn't end with foot archers dyingng, unless of course they are gods in melee. But what would I know, only played 16 gens as archers, and 10 as horse archer, I cannot really say for sure...
I never had a problem keeping focus as HA: focus was to stay alive and shoot everyone you see in the head, the horse, or bump them down and shoot them in the head after that. But again, I played M&B since it became shareware/trialware in 2004 I believe, and full game cost £4... I have rode around shooting stuff for 10 years now.... crazy.
EDIT: on a sidenote, bow balance is still retarded, theres no reason to use the top tier bows except style at the moment, since for reason the fucking joke bows from the east actually do damage to armour, despite their being pretty much toys by the 15th century.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on November 10, 2014, 08:13:00 am
I thought AUS server died from lack of players? If I'm wrong I'm sorry, but I havent seen it in ages in the server list... and if I am right and its gone: WTF are you posting for Frank? The input of someone with 200+ ping is hardly valid or needed.
But treating your post as legitimate: First: I dont see how coming into contact with enemy infantry or cavalry doesn't end with foot archers dyingng, unless of course they are gods in melee. But what would I know, only played 16 gens as archers, and 10 as horse archer, I cannot really say for sure...
I never had a problem keeping focus as HA: focus was to stay alive and shoot everyone you see in the head, the horse, or bump them down and shoot them in the head after that. But again, I played M&B since it became shareware/trialware in 2004 I believe, and full game cost £4... I have rode around shooting stuff for 10 years now.... crazy.
EDIT: on a sidenote, bow balance is still retarded, theres no reason to use the top tier bows except style at the moment, since for reason the fucking joke bows from the east actually do damage to armour, despite their being pretty much toys by the 15th century.
Bully for you sir. But how about you go eat a pile of rotting eviscerated horse cunt.
I've also been playing the game since alpha in 2004. I was playing pre castles when you could only enter one town. Hell I was playing when that town was the only thing on the map.
Archery is one of the few areas that suffers the least with high ping. The Australian server is still there, you may want to try selecting "internet" instead of "favourite".
Your random historical accuracy statement is pointless. This games variety of weapons and armour span about 600 years.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: BlindGuy on November 10, 2014, 05:35:19 pm
I've also been playing the game since alpha in 2004. I was playing pre castles when you could only enter one town. Hell I was playing when that town was the only thing on the map.
Archery is one of the few areas that suffers the least with high ping. The Australian server is still there, you may want to try selecting "internet" instead of "favourite".
Stil cannot see it... and why would I be looking on favourites? But I believe you that it's there. Why then, if it's there, does high ping worry you?
Your random historical accuracy statement is pointless. This games variety of weapons and armour span about 600 years.
Well, everything is relative: gaming is pointless, life is pointless, the universe is pointless... so what? Also, over a thousand years of gear ingame.
And yeah, of course historical accuracy is not an issue in this game, just look at armour: Brigandine is a direct upgrade from coat of plates, yet ingame is opposite, and eastern padded leathers over mail provide more protection than mail and plate, russian armours which were pretty crappy mail coats with padding over them are as good as plate... its retarded, innacurate, and bullshit, but I can point out what I like :D
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: JasonPastman on November 15, 2014, 11:32:51 pm
Sorry bud, but the only people who are gonna miss HAs are HAs.
Title: Re: The death of Horse archery
Post by: kojiro34 on November 18, 2014, 07:36:52 pm
But atleast Ha wasnt broke like some people like to think. Again i suck at mele and my level 1 to 34 2handed/pole has a better K/D ratio that my old level 1 to 37 HA.... (it was 34 before). Of course i get less valor, of course my life is really often shorter in mele but still. But well telling you the truth i start to enjoy a bit mele.... i can play 1 minute, get valor or not and go do something else for 2 minutes. When i was playing HA i had to play carefully, choose my target, be aware (in mele too), and give 100% and i was loosing money... Now lol i win money.
But i still think we have room for HA, balanced around level 35, now it's not.