Messages

13651

General Discussion / Re: On Crushtrhough, A long examination using Melee Dynamics

« on: February 18, 2011, 09:16:58 pm »

And what a pity I already invested a lot of time into my heirloomed mace, and all of my work gonna be nothing because one idiot thinks that crushtrough is OP and remove crushtrough from maces -.-.

Fact : you spent time to heirloom a mace. You are yourself admitting they are OP.

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Suggestions Corner / Re: Can we please fix throwing?

« on: February 18, 2011, 02:54:22 pm »

I think damage is fine.

The changes needed regarding throwing IMO are :

- decrease shot speeds (especially for spear like throwing weps)
- make the shot speed heavily depend on the thrower movement speed when he launches his weapon. This effect should not affect 0 requirement throwing weapons. Basicly, throwing a steel and wood weapon should not even be possible if running backwards. Barely going over 15m if standing still, and have a ~50m range with maximum forward running speed (and 45° distance correction).
- increase reload time
- decrease PT bonus to accuracy
- increase accuracy (to compensate)
- decrease wpf effect on speed and increase it on accuracy
- decrease maintenance costs

And a very important last thing :

Make "turning" throwing weapons hit with the correct part. For example any throwing axe should not automaticly hit with the cutting part, but instead 1/2 of the times do it's normal damage, and the other half do a very little blunt damage, without the bonus vs shield, and in that case drop on the floor (not stuck in the opponent's corpse). I don't know if that is possible (but should be with the extensions). Even better would be that the result wasn't based on a random factor, but instead on the real movement of the axe in the air. So REALLY skilled throwers could reliably hit with the cutting part.

I'm conscious all of this means a hell of a time fighting with scripts, but would undoubtly make the game better.



All of this to balance throwing out and make it even skill-linked. The lost in shot speed compensates with the lower cost (because obviously throwing weapons are, speaking about realism, more like they are described here than how they are in the game).

What do you think ?

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Announcements / Re: more chadzhate incoming - heirloom theft

« on: February 18, 2011, 12:46:44 pm »

I think chadz created this system for grinders because in reality, even if every single thing you possessed was triple heirloomed, its actually a rather small advantage in the grand scheme of things.  Having +12 body armor will not stop you from dying (anyone can get the same level of armor if they are willing to pay the upkeep or wear it less often, unless you are heirlooming the lame looking black armor, which very few do because of upkeep and it doesnt stop them from dying), +5 damage, +2 speed will not make you a God on the battlefield with your sword (92 to 94 speed is like a 2% difference).  The experience cap is astronomical so even with a huge xp bonus nearing the cap you would only get at best +1 powerstrike and IF with +3 strength for the extra 3 levels before the xp requirements starts entering the billions.  None of these diffeences are at all game breaking or come even close to it, which is what chadz planned when he switched it from the pre-patch retirement.  If you don't want any levelling/retiring and all equipment exactly the same as everybody elses, native is always available, but as of now its not a broken system.

You are right about the usefullness of retirement, but I think chadz once said he wanted heirloomed stuff to be rare and special... That's not really the case atm 
Personnally, I retire because I like playing low level (the team doesn't count on you, no pressure ), but I don't like doing alts too much, I still like to see my main char "grow up". So even with very little bonuses I would retire anyway. I don't know if many people are doing the same.

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General Discussion / Re: The classes and the maintenance (upkeep discussion)

« on: February 18, 2011, 12:38:46 pm »

If you get the same k/d ratio with all of those builds I would suggest you play naked, seems like there's no difference between heavily armored and not armored for you? O.o
*facepalm*

I suggest you try to make some honest statistics...

Wearing heavy armor doesn't give any particular advantage on the field. The high armor value is contered by the terrible lack of speed.

Punishing plate users (their "style") by having ridiculous prices for even low tier plate armors was the worst move ever. I think michael doesn't lie when he says he's doing roughly the same k/d with all these classes. But that's not really a reason to change the prices for the anime-looking stuff of the first "class". The problem being, bump cavalry is so noobish that most probably anyone doing it will end up with the same k/d. But other classes are much more skill linked, thus you can have roughly the same k/d with a super costly stuff and a super cheap one, if you are skilled enough (and trust me, new_player_FTW isn't really a total noob).

Light armored people seem not willing to recall that prepatch, most people weren't using plate armors, simply because it's not optimal for most builds. In fact it was realistic in the way that heavy charge style cavalry used heavy armors like they did in the middle ages, and footmen had generally lower armor, for better movement and attack speed. Now everyone is forced to use light or (if the rest of their equipment is cheap) medium armor.

It's perfectly logical ninja's and archers don't complain about upkeep, and flame/troll everyone trying to make it fair. I suggest we completly exclude those people who don't know what they are speaking about from this discussion, as all what they are doing is pure lobbying.

But don't read me wrong : there were some big issues post-patch. Like 40's armored HA, Plated helicopters (Recall of PANZERMARINE_Georges ?), snipers of death-comes-from-nowhere... Those were all solved by the retirement redesign and the new xp curve.

But what did upkeep solved ? Absolutly nothing. On top of that it created global issues very complicated to solve without removing upkeep. Now every succesfull noobish-proof (in the sense "even a noob can play it succesfully") build has all it's wpf points in one domain. Melee characters usually don't go over 15 strenght, because plate armors are useless and you can reliably two shot anyone with 5 PS. Now everyone tries to be as fast as possible because nothing else is important. Except even more lame crushthrough builds. So in average, any archer and even more, thrower will have more strenght than a melee char  .

In the long term, upkeep is decreasing diversity on the battlefield. Just because 1) you can only upkeep the half of the armors you could pre-upkeep 2) there are very few cost-effective armors, and players start to know what these are 3) Melee characters try to go for as much equipment value as they can, thus increasing their armor up to a "limit" depending on their weapon loadout (but the total upkeep value of the weapon sets of the various melee classes are roughly the same). Many players do this, resulting in the vast majority of melee having armors in the same tier. Same thing for horses. Most horses are from tier 2. People that are playing cav over their income (or with little to no armor) use either sarranid or courser. Trolls play in cloth during 3 rounds then use their plate charger and black plate set for one round. That's another retarded effect of upkeep.

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Game Balance Discussion / Re: On Weapon Requirements, A Whine Fix

« on: February 18, 2011, 11:47:08 am »

We really need an advantage to put points in str over 15 when playing a melee character

Currently throwers and archers go for more strength than melee characters.

Seems a little silly to me...

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General Discussion / Re: On Crushtrhough, A long examination using Melee Dynamics

« on: February 18, 2011, 03:49:42 am »

Are you kidding Me? Shields Blocking Throwing axes and all weapons = Counters, as if. Blocking everything at 180 degrees is a massive bonus, not a negative. Just because you can destroy a shield in five swings with an axe doesnt give the axe the advantage.

Players without shields just get hit with throwing axes and have to actually manually block the guy with an axe

Useless how? You can block every weapon and projectile in the game with a 180 degree forcefield and its "useless"
because 4 weapons with crushthrough have a chance to injure. Theres a reason they call it easymode.
Removing Crushthrough would just make sheilders better, which isnt what we need.

I agree that crushthrough needs balancing, but removing it just to satify some whiny noobs isnt the answer

Play 1h + shield at least once please, it could actually prevent you from saying such BS...

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cRPG Technical problems / Re: GOOD FPS/ping, BAD weapon animation

« on: February 17, 2011, 10:27:52 pm »

I know no tweak that can give me a "consistent" FPS/ping, there is always up&down. Already tried to close every app and antivir before playing and it doesnt always help... Sometimes it clearly seems random.


Im pretty close to your report about the ratio perf/FPS, but I really did see a difference after unchecking "load texture on demand".

And your post about ping/packet loss and such was a theory I was thinking out myself but I though under 100ping everything should be good. Might try to look at it with my ISP.



Apart ping and FPS problems, is there a link between the game itself and bad playing performance? Is there players with, say, 50 consistent ping and 100+FPS that experience this kind of weapon animation problem very often?






Same here

Ho yes, "load textures on demand", well I wasn't taking it to be part of graphic options (because it's not integrated in the "performance" estimation). It's needed for heavy mods, but not for cRPG, because the number of textures is roughly the same in Native, and it's multiplayer (you need good perf).

Concerning having issues with 50 "consistent" ping... well you can't call any ping as "consistent". If the server has to handle a big amount of number crunching in a short time window, things will allways go a little crazy. I had an average of 9 ping (and needless to say, extremely stable) when the EU4 server was located near Brussels, and still had "wtf how is that sword that long" problems. Less than now, but still from time to time. This wasn't related to my ping, but to the amount of people connected and their ping.

What server are you playing on ? Maybe the rig is a little to thin to handle many players.

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Faction Halls / Re: The Santa Squad

« on: February 17, 2011, 03:37:41 pm »

Btw, what's the average level of Santas ?

You all seem like you aren't 30.

I'll eventually make a Santa alt 

Btw : just to prove my point HA's are still OP 

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General Discussion / Re: Disarming

« on: February 17, 2011, 03:22:34 pm »

yes that what i mean, sorry for my bad eanglish if my first post was unintelligible.

No, it's simply I think the idea is so good I say it again like it's myself who found it 

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cRPG Technical problems / Re: GOOD FPS/ping, BAD weapon animation

« on: February 17, 2011, 03:21:25 pm »

I play with "28% perf", setting everything to maximum, and FPS don't even change by one when compared to minimum settings.

Usually, getting killed when you are out of range of someone (out of range on your pc, client side) just means the server has an hard time computing everything correctly, or someone near you (maybe yourself) is having bad ping, thus activating the congestion prevention mechanism and slowing down the rate of sending of the packets. Because your client is extrapolating positions when he doesn't get the server update, weird things can "happen" for you, but not on the server.

Having from time to time a bad ping yourself will likely cause those issues by itself, for you and others.

Just imagine you are fighting someone and when you loose the connexion, he is going backwards. Your client knows that guy is going backwards, he waits for the server to send new info about the enemy's direction and position, but doesn't get it. But he has to show you something so he starts from the assumption the enemy is still moving in the last direction he was moving. So you see the guy still going backwards, and you are now away from his range. Now let's say the packet arrives. The client syncs himself to the new information. Let's say in reality your enemy did not continued to go backwards, but forward then swing and killed you.

This is a rather extreme situation but can happen. In this case, you'll see the enemy teleporting and killing you in a flash (the client is running the game faster to catch the server time).



These sorts of issues aren't likely to be linked with graphic options or client computing load. 50-90 ping is perfectly playable, but might be laggy with congested servers

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General Discussion / Re: Disarming

« on: February 17, 2011, 02:56:10 pm »

Is a great idea but the disarmament should work only with chamber block. Then chamber have sense. Of corse not all weapons only special.

You mean, when you chamberblock someone you have a chance to disarm him ? Hey that sounds good 

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Suggestions Corner / Re: Essential Changes/Tweaks Needed in Next Patch/Update

« on: February 17, 2011, 02:54:43 pm »

1. No. Simply because polearm reaches are fucked up, they are slower than two handers and do less damage.
2. I support more diversity for bows, but I think it would be better to balance them in sync with xbows in a more realistic manner. Xbows should be the long range weapons (and not bows), not because of accuracy, but because of shot speed (thus range). But first xbow effectiveness should be more linked to wpf. However, I don't think it's a good idea to do a general buff to bows even more.
3. I posted some ideas over xp and retirement in another thread
4. Well readjusting is not enough, as someone else said, just remove the crushthrough flag for barmaces and long iron maces. For knockdown, my personal opinion is to remove it completly from the game.
5. Slowing down the reload speed, reducing shot speed A LOT (pro javelin throwers using competition gear can't throw like that, and here we have not so trained soldiers throwing mid quality steel and wood weapons with machine gun speed without moving that do better), increasing accuracy a tad for heavy throwing gear, and decreasing it for light (under franciscas).
6. Pure classes are actually dominating... Very few thrower hybrids have any point in throwing, very few melee using xbow have any points in xbow. Just look at scoreboards and ask people around...

Add to this the over-advantage being faster will grant you (either for spam, feints or blocks), since armors are 1/2 of what they were pre patch. The goal of the game is now hitting first.

Even "marginal" wpf differences will determine who dies and who survives.

For me the real problem isn't the current wpf system, it's the skill requirement progression. Each skill level requires the same 3 points of attribute. For me, low skill levels should require less additionnal attribute points than high skill levels. This would allow REAL hybridation.

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General Discussion / Re: Disarming

« on: February 17, 2011, 02:21:57 pm »

Might be realistic and fun for a little while, but in the end, it will end up like a annoying ability, much like how crush-through is atm 

Yes if it is implemented like crushthrough is 

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Beginner's Help and Guides / Re: So I wanna be a Gallant knight upon a grand STEEEEED! But I require assistance!

« on: February 17, 2011, 02:20:48 pm »

You can choose different paths :

- Cav anticav :

Heavy lance
(facultative) shield
A self-defense weapon . One hander, two hander is better if you can block.
A horse chosen for it's maneuvrability : steppe, desert or sarranid. Obviously, try to use the sarranid as much as possible, it's a wonderful horse.
light armor. Because those horses are damn expensive, and you really don't need armor if you play accordingly to your skill and equipment setup.

Avoid archers and any kind of ranged attacks. Concentrate on defending your team against bump & slashers. If you feel confident, try to lure HA's to your ally archery.

- Bump & slash

a lance for defense against cav
a shield (allmost mandatory)
a onehander (twohander if you are confident). Never tried two hander cavalry myself, and allmost never seen anyone doing that, but some very powerful twohanders are usable on horseback (the hopefully-soon-to-be-nerfed barmace for example)
A powerfull horse, with armor, health points and charge damage. Your "good times" horse will probably be the destrier, and the economical choice will be the rouncey. Depends on the amount of character armor you want.
At least medium armor, because you don't want to be onehit when your horse dies. You'll be an arrow magnet, so armor really helps.


I played a few days recently with 37k gear : rouncey, tunic over mail, mail coif, mail mittens, splinted leather greaves over mail, knightly arming sword (+2), knightly heather shield, heavy lance.

I switched to that same equipment with the lance replaced by a pike and no horse for stupidly done CS-like maps. What I use isn't really my idea of medium armor (tunic over mail is the higher tier of light armors). But it's to use the regular set of my clan.


Concerning the one hander you want to use, there are various choices :

if you want to have ghost reach and use the uber fast ones :

- the spammitar
- the side sword
- the pick (yes it's ridiculous but the reach is ten times longer than what you see)

now if you have self-esteem :

- the morningstar
- any high tier straight sword

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General Discussion / Re: Disarming

« on: February 17, 2011, 01:44:00 pm »

Could be cool, but we already have so much things to balance out I don't think it's a good idea to add others...