We've released 3 balance readjustment patches right after the first patch. We're giving the community a chance to test out balance changes and give feedback(your bitching and crying will be ignored).
If you actually read my posts you'll see that we're currently working on adjusting all item requirements which should of been done right after the Patch of Destiny back in Oct 2014
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Skeith on February 18, 2016, 08:05:59 am
That's not the point. I don't main ranged anyway, I main hoplite shielder.
The fact is, as long as 2handers are the majority of the playerbase, there will always be whine about ranged. It's natural, ranged is the counter to 2h! Against a smart shield wielder, ranged is completely useless - this was the real life "meta", and this is why the core of ancient to medieval armies were always shield wielders. The problem is not ranged being OP, its the players refusing to adjust to the metagame.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Skeith on February 18, 2016, 08:32:42 am
The problem stems from 2h heros being the "norm". This was never the case in real life and should never have been the case in c-rpg.
Fact is, an organized and determined group of infantry is unstoppable by cav or ranged, and almost all the time, infantry pushes are what wins games. This has always been the case in c-rpg.
But the problem is, everybody wants be the big hero, running around alone and without cover, playing like a stupid hack and slash arcade game. . People have this stupid mentality of "if i can block every melee attack in the duel server, I should never die". They just want to turn this game into a infantry brawl with no ranged and no cavalry, everybody in tincan and wielding 2h swords or polearms. Everytime they die to cav or ranged its "wahh wahh, OP!! nerf!!!", with no thought about tactics.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Asheram on February 18, 2016, 08:40:26 am
I have a 2h alt I see range as no more a problem as my main with a shield
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Arthur_ on February 18, 2016, 09:19:21 am
I want to be a shielder hero, and still get rekt by ranged
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Golem on February 18, 2016, 10:54:10 am
If you want to argue this, then I shall raise the point that even my flabby arms can carry a mediumshield, that's strapped to my forearm. Remove shield difficulty from those, with the exception of large or heavy shields and you can buff ranged all you want.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Gurgumul on February 18, 2016, 02:14:19 pm
The 2h feinting racist frenchmans made me hate the game so much, that almost every of my chars is in some way a ranged now. Fuck them and their tryhard spins, they rely on cheap tricks rather than proper good ol' head bashing.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Penitent on February 18, 2016, 02:35:42 pm
I kind of agree with this. My main is shielder, and I love going after ranged. It's like, my job. They aren't really a problem.
When I play 2h, they aren't a "problem" because I don't really mind dying -- but they are much more of a challenge. A thorn. A danger.
Do you know what I do? I hide behind my teamies with shields when archers are about.
SO -- you can either take a shield (don't be a 2h) or use teamwork (don't be a hero). Nerfing ranged just decreases the quality of the mod.
However, if people simply don't or won't use teamwork properly -- perhaps that makes ranged OP, by our own fault. THAT raises the question: should we balance the game based on how people should/could play, or how people actually do play?
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on February 18, 2016, 03:05:35 pm
Balance should be on how people could/should play, not how they do play. Infantry blobs working together are what dominate the servers. Teamwork is very underrated on the forums, but quite OP in game.
Compare crpg archery to native and you'll realize how much crpg has nerfed archery (I'm not saying it's a bad thing, native archery is a joke). People will always find something to complain about, and it's easier to complain in game or on the forums about a wall being in your way, than to try and find a way around it, or over it, or under it.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Skeith on February 18, 2016, 03:21:07 pm
^ those 2 guys just summed up what I'm trying to say with this thread
especially "Nerfing ranged just decreases the quality of the mod."
Its not just ranged, but all these constant nerfs and tweaks to everything are really too much, and over the years its resulted in c-rpg combat feeling alot "clumsier" or "sticky" compared to native. They really need to stop and just let us play the game. Add some new gear and fluff once in a while, but FFS quit touching the combat mechanics.
Sometimes I feel like the devs are changing things just to find something to do...
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Rebelyell on February 18, 2016, 03:21:49 pm
The problem stems from 2h heros being the "norm". This was never the case in real life and should never have been the case in c-rpg.
And archer were never good against Armored troops in RL too, oh wait do we use RL argument or not because i got lost in that. But dot worry about that my polearmer gets rape by archer the same way as my 2h.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Totally Not McDeath on February 18, 2016, 03:35:55 pm
Nerf teamwork.
Save the cheerleader save the mod
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Skeith on February 18, 2016, 03:39:39 pm
And archer were never good against Armored troops in RL too, oh wait do we use RL argument or not because i got lost in that. But dot worry about that my polearmer gets rape by archer the same way as my 2h.
If you really want to play the real life game... in real life that suit of armor in your pic takes thousands of man hours, most knights couldn't even afford that, its reserved for the super elite, like dukes and kings. In c-rpg anybody can have it in a couple hours. Besides, it was not invulnerable. Remember Agincourt and Crecy? Now that was real range spam :lol:
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Rebelyell on February 18, 2016, 03:42:40 pm
That was irony. Do I really have to say that?
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Golem on February 18, 2016, 05:45:41 pm
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Penitent on February 18, 2016, 06:07:40 pm
IRL there were plenty of 2h soldiers. In late medieval times, armor got so good that a shield wasn't as necessary. Knights kept a longsword (2h) attached to their saddle for when they dismounted or had their horse injured. Also, 2h foot soldiers were mixed in with pike squares to help defeat infantry, or other pikes.
Archers were always effective. Even a fully armored knight could get hurt under a hail of arrows. It was the cavalry's job to scatter them and drive them from the field.
However, unlike CRPG, historical battles were not fought with individual archers running around shooting at individual 2h knights. At the same time, just like CRPG, teamwork was the order of the day. Units won battles. :)
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Rico on February 18, 2016, 06:12:28 pm
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Gravoth_iii on February 18, 2016, 06:33:33 pm
Buff shields to be OP, even low tier ones. Much more widths, closer to the new viking shield. This way archery could still be damage dealing, as long as people have a reliable strong counter.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: darmaster on February 18, 2016, 06:34:50 pm
IRL there were plenty of 2h soldiers. In late medieval times, armor got so good that a shield wasn't as necessary. Knights kept a longsword (2h) attached to their saddle for when they dismounted or had their horse injured. Also, 2h foot soldiers were mixed in with pike squares to help defeat infantry, or other pikes.
Archers were always effective. Even a fully armored knight could get hurt under a hail of arrows. It was the cavalry's job to scatter them and drive them from the field.
However, unlike CRPG, historical battles were not fought with individual archers running around shooting at individual 2h knights. At the same time, just like CRPG, teamwork was the order of the day. Units won battles. :)
Unlike crpg, mob tactics were usually not the rule of the day. Like crpg, the horse and not the armored rider was the usual archer's target. The legs were far more vulnerable than the knight. If you reference RL you must also mention that it was only a small portion of a Medieval army that was heavily armored due to expense, unlike crpg where everyone who puts in the time can be a heavily armored 2 hander.
At Crecy, around 7500 English long bow archers loosed around 90,000 arrows in the 40 seconds it took the French knights to cross the open ground of the valley separating the two forces. That's 12 arrows in 40 seconds or 18 per minute. These figures are estimates based on accounts and the performance of modern day expert archers using yew long bows. This fire was sufficiently devastating that it piled up tangled windrows of dead and dying men and horses and thus impeded the attackers even more.
The French QQ'd about ranged spam too. They complained that it was wholly improper that so much nobility was laid low by men of no consequence (meaning archers).
At Crecy archers made up about 50% of the English army.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on February 18, 2016, 06:55:18 pm
Unlike crpg, mob tactics were usually not the rule of the day. Like crpg, the horse and not the armored rider was the usual archer's target. The legs were far more vulnerable than the knight. If you reference RL you must also mention that it was only a small portion of a Medieval army that was heavily armored due to expense, unlike crpg where everyone who puts in the time can be a heavily armored 2 hander.
At Crecy, around 7500 English long bow archers loosed around 90,000 arrows in the 40 seconds it took the French knights to cross the open ground of the valley separating the two forces. That's 12 arrows in 40 seconds or 18 per minute. These figures are estimates based on accounts and the performance of modern day expert archers using yew long bows. This fire was sufficiently devastating that it piled up tangled windrows of dead and dying men and horses and thus impeded the attackers even more.
The French QQ'd about ranged spam too. They complained that it was wholly improper that so much nobility was laid low by men of no consequence (meaning archers).
At Crecy archers made up about 50% of the English army.
Only difference for people in real life, they can QQ all they want, it's up to them to find a solution to a problem. They don't have devs to nerf something for them. And like IRL, cRPG players have the ability to overcome obstacles on their own without QQ'ing and hoping devs fix the problem for them.
Instead of asking (crying) for devs to remove the wall, maybe you should try going over/around/through the wall. Or avoid the wall entirely and wait for flags to come up :rolleyes: Admittedly, crying and blaming someone else for your problems, has always been easier than overcoming the obstacles on your own.
Also I'm pretty sure Pentinent (or maybe it was SKeith) mentioned that most people won't be wearing extremely well made plate armor on the battle field.
I personally feel crpg has been nerfed too much over the years. Some things from native definitely needed to be toned down (things like the lance stab radius, or the damage and missile speed of arrows, or the original shield mechanics in crpg that allowed people to gain shield hit points the more the shield got hit). But the path we've been down over the last 5 years is you listen to enough cry babies on the forums, and then you nerf thing/item A. Now thing/item B becomes "OP"due to nerf on thing item A, so you nerf thing/item B. Now thing/item C becomes OP due to the nerf of thing/item B, so now you nerf thing/item C? Now thing/item A is OP again, time for another round of nerfs. And the cycle continues.
Where do you stop? Won't somebody end the nerfs? Combat does start to feel clunkier after all the nerfs begetting nerfs.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Screaming Idiot on February 18, 2016, 08:28:58 pm
Some history here to back up the arguments made ITT:
The bulk of medieval infantry, especially considering the general context cRPG fits into, were defensive infantry (usually pikemen, shielders, or a mix of both) supported by crossbowmen or longbowmen (usually the former since they were cheaper and easier to use than the latter). Any infantry using two handed weapons (such as large axes, voulges, bastard swords, longswords, and the occasional greatsword) would never be put in the direct line of fire of enemy archers, especially if they were not using plate armor and/or they were up against armor-piercing crossbows (common on the late 14th and early 15th centuries). These troops would usually act as shock troopers to break the ranks of opposing infantrymen, especially pikemen since they could either outrange them or close in for CQC, something pikes fail to do. Anyone who is under the illusion they can charge into a group of archers without a shield, a teammate with a shield or by ambushing them into CQC is a damned fool, both within the functions of this game and irl. In my experience, even when I used to run with poles/2h I never tried to chase down enemy archers without full plate (excluding crossbowmen), shielder support, ample cover provided by obstacles, or getting the drop on them. Plus, if archers had a clear shot on me while engaging other infantrymen, I would move to cover and take care of business like, you know, a person with common sense.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Gravoth_iii on February 19, 2016, 01:51:47 am
Some history here to back up the arguments made ITT:
The bulk of medieval infantry, especially considering the general context cRPG fits into, were defensive infantry (usually pikemen, shielders, or a mix of both) supported by crossbowmen or longbowmen (usually the former since they were cheaper and easier to use than the latter). Any infantry using two handed weapons (such as large axes, voulges, bastard swords, longswords, and the occasional greatsword) would never be put in the direct line of fire of enemy archers, especially if they were not using plate armor and/or they were up against armor-piercing crossbows (common on the late 14th and early 15th centuries). These troops would usually act as shock troopers to break the ranks of opposing infantrymen, especially pikemen since they could either outrange them or close in for CQC, something pikes fail to do. Anyone who is under the illusion they can charge into a group of archers without a shield, a teammate with a shield or by ambushing them into CQC is a damned fool, both within the functions of this game and irl. In my experience, even when I used to run with poles/2h I never tried to chase down enemy archers without full plate (excluding crossbowmen), shielder support, ample cover provided by obstacles, or getting the drop on them. Plus, if archers had a clear shot on me while engaging other infantrymen, I would move to cover and take care of business like, you know, a person with common sense.
So you're basically saying, not all crossbows should be able to penetrate high-tier armor or deal much damage, to a wearer of said class of armour. All in favour?
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Horns on February 19, 2016, 03:08:57 am
This is a stupid cancerous thread. Stop coming up with new ways to play the blame game and suck itta fuck up.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Tiger on February 19, 2016, 03:23:20 am
So you're basically saying, not all crossbows should be able to penetrate high-tier armor or deal much damage, to a wearer of said class of armour. All in favour?
Well, its more on a per-crossbow basis, as there is not necessarily a clear "breaking point" for what sort of crossbow/bolt can pierce plate. I can certainly say, however, that an Arbalest could penetrate plate at long-range while a Hunting Crossbow would struggle to do so at any distance besides point-blank. The crossbows in between should have a gradually increasing penetration ability (LEAST PENETRATION: Hunting-Light-Regular-Heavy-Arbalest :MOST PENETRATION), although most crossbows should do fine against the majority of players who use light-medium armor (heraldic mail up to, say, rus scale armor). The trade off, of course, would be the weight, longer loading time, high WPF scaling and STR requirement, although the heaviest (Arbalest) should not have a STR requirement of 24 which, besides being unrealistic, doesn't really make sense unless you were loading bolts by hand (which is dumb, because almost all crossbows used hook-drawn mechanisms and the Arbalest specifically used a specialized crank mechanism called a windlass).
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Gurgumul on February 19, 2016, 04:28:58 am
The trade off, of course, would be the weight, longer loading time, high WPF scaling and STR requirement, although the heaviest (Arbalest) should not have a STR requirement of 24 which, besides being unrealistic, doesn't really make sense unless you were loading bolts by hand (which is dumb, because almost all crossbows used hook-drawn mechanisms and the Arbalest specifically used a specialized crank mechanism called a windlass).
Crossbows should have relatively low (up to 9 maybe) or no STR requirements, because it doesn't take much strength to hold and shoot it. Reloading, however, does require stronk mooscles, so their rate of fire should be strongly dependant on STR, rather than WPF. I suggest making WPF dictate accuracy, and STR dictate reload time or even allow drawing by hand if game's engine allows for that.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Turkhammer on February 19, 2016, 04:29:03 am
I personally feel crpg has been nerfed too much over the years. Some things from native definitely needed to be toned down (things like the lance stab radius, or the damage and missile speed of arrows, or the original shield mechanics in crpg that allowed people to gain shield hit points the more the shield got hit). But the path we've been down over the last 5 years is you listen to enough cry babies on the forums, and then you nerf thing/item A. Now thing/item B becomes "OP"due to nerf on thing item A, so you nerf thing/item B. Now thing/item C becomes OP due to the nerf of thing/item B, so now you nerf thing/item C? Now thing/item A is OP again, time for another round of nerfs. And the cycle continues.
Where do you stop? Won't somebody end the nerfs? Combat does start to feel clunkier after all the nerfs begetting nerfs.
I think the devs are in way too deep and are lost in balance hell.
Crossbows should have relatively low (up to 9 maybe) or no STR requirements, because it doesn't take much strength to hold and shoot it. Reloading, however, does require stronk mooscles, so their rate of fire should be strongly dependant on STR, rather than WPF. I suggest making WPF dictate accuracy, and STR dictate reload time or even allow drawing by hand if game's engine allows for that.
The average 5'6" medieval soldier could load them using leg strength or both arms or a windlass. The devs really ought to look at how many shots per minute a RL crossbow archer could fire. But I'm afraid modeling on RL examples is not popular here.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Screaming Idiot on February 19, 2016, 04:36:32 am
Crossbows should have relatively low (up to 9 maybe) or no STR requirements, because it doesn't take much strength to hold and shoot it. Reloading, however, does require stronk mooscles, so their rate of fire should be strongly dependant on STR, rather than WPF. I suggest making WPF dictate accuracy, and STR dictate reload time or even allow drawing by hand if game's engine allows for that.
I think the devs are in way too deep and are lost in balance hell.
l
True to both, although the default animation already is drawing the crossbow's string back by hand rather than using a hook mechanism or a windlass (or some other mechanical device) which is unrealistic but easier to animate (as it was in the original M&B). And yeah, getting the animation changed will probably not happen. Food for thought for Melee: Battlegrounds whatever the fuck they're calling that game now. In terms of STR requirement, historically and nowadays drawing the string of a crossbow is not altogether difficult since they're mostly mechanical instead of requiring specific hand motions and strength from the user like a bow. However, I believe having it at a high enough STR level is necessary to avoid people abusing ATH to run like hell and be super-mobile crossbowmen, but I think your suggestion is pretty interesting in terms of the game's context nevertheless.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Nagasoup on February 20, 2016, 06:09:04 am
The devs really ought to look at how many shots per minute a RL crossbow archer could fire. But I'm afraid modeling on RL examples is not popular here.
It's what I have do. Real life xbow with a trained soldier was able to make 5 shots/minute in good condition.
Atm, the Arbalest (slowest xbow) in cRPG can make 6 shots/minute with 0 wpf (more with a dedicated build). Close to reality but not too much for gameplay.
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Yuang on February 21, 2016, 07:10:09 am
When the shield behind the back, why cannot stop the range? That is not reasonable!
Title: Re: The problem was never ranged
Post by: Guray on February 21, 2016, 07:38:23 am
It's what I have do. Real life xbow with a trained soldier was able to make 5 shots/minute in good condition.
Atm, the Arbalest (slowest xbow) in cRPG can make 6 shots/minute with 0 wpf (more with a dedicated build). Close to reality but not too much for gameplay.
A long time ago it was decided balancing according to reality was an extremely poor decision. Deciding to overwrite all of those other people's voice and make such drastic changes are not wanted, which you can clearly tell by the feedback in multiple threads and the discussions/posts made by other admins and balancers. No one wants drastic change.