edit: ==PATCH FIX IS ARRIVING TODAY. WHAT IS SAID IN THIS THREAD IS OUT OF DATE== changelog link:
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,152990.0.htmlThe long waited for CRPG patch has arrived. Unfortunately, it has some bugs and many balance issues. But does the good outweigh the bad? I don't think so. After many hours of play and frustration, I've fully acknowledged all the issues. In this thread, I will list and discuss these problems. Then, I'll share my ideas for fixing them. Whether you think this patch needs some tweaks, or major changes, we can all agree SOMETHING needs to be done.
Please note that the ideas I suggest are just simply that. Suggestions. They are just features I personally find could be possible. I am not claiming that they are perfect or absolutely right, and they obviously can be changed a bit if need be. If you want to help encourage a patch, post here and share your thoughts! The more feedback the better (it also helps me improve this post).
Let's begin:
1. CAVALRY
2. EXP/GOLD REWARDS
3. THE REPAIR BILL
4. THE TEAM-BALANCER
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1. CAVALRY - In terms of balance, Cavalry has always been a bit of a balance problem. Before the patch, and a little bit more after. Riding a horse LITERALLY makes you 3x more powerful and harder to kill. Horse archers (the ones who stay at range) are fine. But the issue is those suckers that come in close, run everyone over, and then hit you while you're down. Cavalry, no matter who it is or what horse, are the most powerful force on the battlefield. Almost anyone can be on a horse and do tons better than on foot.
Lets discuss counters,
Want to jump and then hit them? They'll just block it, and/or you'll get yourself killed or run over. This is usually very hard to pull off. Even harder with higher tier cavalry.
Want to shoot at range? Archers, Throwers, and Crossbowmen, are all easy first targets for the Cavalry once they're spotted. It is very hard to pull off the right shot when going ranged, especially when there's more than one cavalry picking at the ranged support and/or they're closing in fast.
Want to get out of the way? Good luck. They might even jump passed your cover and hit you in mid-air if you find any. It's pretty unrealistic. Even moving makes you a more predictable and easier target to kill. Sometimes you just have no choice but to face the great cavalry, and die trying. Cavalry forcing you into tight locations makes you an easier target for infantry, too.
Want to use your spear? The horse will survive it, the rider will block it, or they'll just avoid your weapon entirely. And with your spear out, you are vulnerable to other infantry close by. Using a 2h is even less effective against charging cavalry. A lot of spears are slow too. so there's still a big chance you will die! Really, try using a pike on a heavy horse yourself and see what happens. You may get a good bit of their health down, but you probably won't kill them.
Another problem. The older players before this patch, the ones who can afford breaking their expensive gear and ride the greatest horses, overpower the ones with less gold (majority of players) so much that it can cost the opposing teams whole match! Players are too scared to buy on par gear or horses because of the repair bill. Even if they did buy the same gear, they'd be going up against players who have weeks more experience in cavalry, which is why they don't. When there is a cavalry player like this, most infantry in their path are dead meat. Your only hope is having another elite cavalry on your team. We shouldn't have to fight fire with fire.
The possible solutions for cavalry:
One: Some horses slightly easier to kill.
Two: Much harder (for the cavalry) to hit you after their horse has knocked you down. Getting knocked down, and killed by their sword/lance while UNDER them just isn't real or fair. They can easily kill you without knocking you down first anyway.
Three: All general repair price fixed. Self-explanatory, really. (example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSCUuEBOKxc )
Four: Dare I say it, a wipe. The fact so many people were around before a repair bill only adds to the cavalry problem. Because not only is it hard to kill cavalry, but it's now hard to become one in defense. Too bad so many people before the patch could afford to become cavalry, eh? Now they're our problem.
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2. EXP/GOLD REWARDS - I admit, the way we receive Experience and Gold is a bit better than before. But this system still has much more room for improvement. The problem now is that it is given per minute. This actually encourages people to hide, run, leech, and unnecessarily prolong the game whether they're losing or winning. If players are losing, some want to scrounge up as much gold as possible to cover their repairs, so then they hide or run. If players are winning, they want even more rewards, so they try to take more time with the match. When the winners do that though; the game is longer, boring, and seemingly pointless for the losers. Even if neither of this happens, and the game ends quickly, that means you lost the potentially loads more gold because of the less time it took. So you don't have much of a choice!
Also, due to low multiplier not covering up their repair bills, losers usually even quit. Unfortunately leaving IS the only choice sometimes. With the current patch, you have to leave if you know you're going to lose. If you don't leave anyway, enjoy the money lost, or maybe you happen to be a leeching peasant who just doesn't care. Players need to stay in the game, and not leech!
Let's discuss what this system really means:
For example, you have a very good team that continues to win. You can just sit back, contribute nothing, and still get as much of a reward if you tried your hardest since it just doesn't matter! It's not based on how many kills you personally have, how many kills your whole team got, or how quickly you won; it's just all about the passing minute. Even if you killed nearly all the team, and are a huge credit, you're still getting 50 gold per minute as if your hard work means nothing. That's not right!
The solution for Gold & Experience:
Instead of having the gold and exp be per minute, have it be given at the end of each round. The total reward would then be raised/determined by your personal kills, your teams killed, if you died or not, and perhaps even by how fast your team won (IF you won). Of course the multiplier would still apply to the payment, too, but maybe not entirely (or else the award would be too large). The multiplier's max limit may also have to be lowered so the reward isn't ever too high after winning streaks (personally, it wouldn't be so bad to even remove the multiplier entirely if the devs were to do this). Implementing this would fix countless, if not all the problems, that we're currently having.
At the very end of the entire match, It'd be nice if you got more gold for being there the whole time too!
Too complicated of a solution, you say?
Then just give exp and gold to the entire team PER KILL, and add a bonus for the one who got the kill. There would be a victory bonus at the end of each match too, affected by the multiplier.
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3. THE REPAIR BILL - We all feared the dreaded Repair Bill after the patch was released. We heard terrible experiences with it, heard how much gold you could lose, and read how it could ruin your whole game. The result is that it's not really as bad as it sounds. Sure you can lose a lot of gold to it if you lose constantly, but that's more about the team-balancer and exp/gold system needing to be improved (but why you wouldn't have quit a doomed game is beyond me). But, it's still not perfect. The concept of it deciding which gear breaks, how much gear breaks, all at complete random is a real pain sometimes. The same piece of gear can even be damaged twice and automatically repaired twice at the same time too (what the heck?). Even gear you hardly used one round, or not used at all, can break! (see solution)
But, lets talk more about the cost. If you play it smart with what you buy (especially armor), you won't really lose much gold, you'll actually gain gold. I like that. An expensive shield and weapon isn't such bad repair cost either, including that you know how to use those weapons and you still have gold saved after the purchase. However, with heavy expensive armor, you'll lose so much to the repair bill there's really no point. Expensive armor doesn't protect you so much that it's really worth it's own huge repair price which is capable of bankrupting you. You can be in light armor, or even medium armor, and still do much better than the majority of the whole tincan fleet. So currently, getting really expensive armor is near pointless unless you're an old player with 100k gold (but of course, they were around before the repair bill). My advice, get medium armor and stick with your team.
The possible solution to the Repair Bill:
1. Expensive Heavy Armor/Horses are hard, and durable right? So just make more it be damaged less often (the less chance of damage only becoming very apparent in heavier armor). That way, you'll only pay the big bill if your team loses a lot. If you lose a lot, then you shouldn't have bought the armor in the first place (or simply decided not to equip it for the match). Case closed!
2. The random system may be annoying, but I have an idea to improve it. Have the chest piece damage less often, so the majority of payments are for armor pieces like boots, hands, and helmet which are more vulnerable. Weapons/Shield that were not used, or hardly used a battle, should just not be damaged. Period.
3. Another commonly suggested solution, is to just remove the repair bills entirely.
4. Lower the repair cost to about half of what it is now.
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4. THE TEAM-BALANCER - No big complaints here. The team auto-balancer is way better now, and actually has only some room for improvement. But if possible, it should balance the teams before the first round begins. It also needs to balance the players more often, which I know sounds annoying, but including that it becomes better at balancing the teams; switches won't be so bad. I say this because, sometimes, teams are pretty unbalanced, and even after one team wins like 6 times in a row there's still no auto-balancing. I haven't really studied how the Team-Balancer works exactly, but I hope it's going to be worked on even further.
EDIT: I've heard that the team-balancer is now heavily influenced by the player's banners. I understand people like to be together in clans, but when one powerful team is one on side and the other has none, it's just unbalanced. Not everyone wants to be in a clan!
EDIT2: Usually at the beginning of a match, the first team that wins pretty much has nearly all it's good players moved to the other team. This is stupid for the auto-balance to do, especially since it's just judging balance based on one round. Many unbalanced games ensue. I hope this is improved upon.
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And that's about it. Again, share your thoughts and tell me if you like what I've suggested. Tell me if I've made any mistakes, if you agree, what could be done instead, etc. The more feedback, the better.
Here's to getting a patch soon,
!
Thank you.
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