“Balance Philosophy” and why I think “X” is less UP/OP than you might think.

[Michael]

I went through all the trouble and spend about 8 mins with reading the first post and I have to say you have overlooked some important things:

1) many archers carry a polearm/ 2h for melee. That breaks the system. Cos of their high agi they can outspam many 1h-shielders. This shouldnt be possible. Even the worst dedicated melee warrior should be able to defeat a pure archer in 1 vs 1. Otherwise the whole system you describe is broken, and therefore, I am sorry, your post kinda worthless.

2) heavy cavalry isnt very powerful any more. With the cheapest horse (Palfrey) I get more kills than with my heirloomed heavy plated charger. 


I am not in the mood to argue, but I guess neither you nor Paul has ever played with a plated charger.

[Chagan_Arslan]

Or do you really want to reduce meele to "clicking with mouse button"? 

so your saying only archers press left mouse button if they want to kill someone..
and i dont want to reduce "meele" to anything but you reduced riding to pressing "w" and thats just silly, yeah because the other guy wont do anything if he will see you charging straight forward at him

[Grey]

1) many archers carry a polearm/ 2h for melee. That breaks the system. Cos of their high agi they can outspam many 1h-shielders. This shouldnt be possible.

It isnt: Archers have 18 str, so "high agi" is not something they have. Silly little wankers with pd3 bows are like moskitos, they are not archers. Archers have 18 str.

BUT REGARDLESS why is there still a discussion, ever patch changes the game, and people who post here are the problem: If you cannot find any class that you can rape people with, play another game, dont whine for the game to be changed. I suck at League of Legends, so I just dont play it. I do well in Warband (not just crpg) in any class. And, this, like ALL discussions about balance, can be summed up the same way I sum up all the "discussions" I stumble on:

Rock > Scissors > Paper > Rock > Scissors > Paper > Rock > Scissors > Paper > Rock > Scissors > Paper > (ad naseum)


Simple: Thanks to the whine during last patch, throwers are now godlike: Am I gonna start a thread about it? No. Archers got a MASSIVE nerf, but still people want them to do NO damage. Crossbows got a tiny nerf, and can still 1shot people easily: Most xbow users are whining. Light cav is cheap as chips to maintain, but a bunch of them are whining now too. I hate it, SO much: Polearms are MASSIVELY powerful, but to carry a big one you gotta put your shield away, so THOSE guys whine about ranged, 2h swordsmen got a massive nerf cause sheeple couldnt spot a stab animation and claimed it was the games fault. MAKES ME RAGE: With ANY of my chars, I will fight ANY other player: At range or in melee, be they on horses, foot, or on a building. When I die, I MADE THE MISTAKE, the game isnt broken.

A hint to OP: Archers never complain that shields are too powerful, personally I LOVE shielders, they move slowly and make nice targets when Im on my archer, on melee chars shielders are USUALLY an easykill (Obviosuly players like Cyber are an exeption to this) cause you can just spam them, since you can tract the number of skillpoints they wasted on shieldskill. On horseback, a shield is a MUST mosttimes, but on foot, putting points into IF or shield just shows a faulty philosophy: WHY are you planning on getting hit?? The plan is to AVOID being hit!

Stop changing the game guys, just l2p.

[Mattressi]

So, Grey, essentially your post boils down to this: each patch nerfs and buffs some things, making some things UP and some OP, but we shouldn't complain because...we should L2P...? So you think it's fine that throwers are currently OP and that previously certain other builds were OP, because people shouldn't worry about balance and should, instead, learn to play the game? What kind of argument is that?? Do you just want everyone to play as the currently OP build, or should people just pretend it's fine to be raped whenever they meet a certain build in battle (like, everyone vs a plated charger pre-patch)? I believe the mod should keep being balanced until each build requires the same amount of skill and effort to do well. Certainly this is not an easy goal, but if there's almost a unanimous consensus from various types of players that a certain build is OP, why not discuss it and look into it? chadz can verify if a certain build/weapon/item is allowing people to get a far better k/d than others.

How about, everyone discusses the game balance until the game is reasonably balanced (i.e. no one build is clearly OP and raping every other build)?

[Thomek]

You forgot:
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[Kaelaen]

Somewhat agree, as Grey has mentioned and speaking from the point of view of an archer, I have never seen archers whining about shields.  It's a very safe class to play, and if you're good in manual blocking well... that's just player skill and as mentioned that's the more important factor anyway.

[Casimir]

putting points into IF or shield just shows a faulty philosophy

I whole heartily disagree with what you have said there.


IF is useful for tin cans as it makes the plate is far more useful.  IF in sheilders is debatable but there will always come a time where in a cluster fuck someone get behind you and with no iron flesh that could be the end of your round.

IF is not useless and pointless on pure melee characters as mistakes are inevitable and why should they be the end of your game?

The rest of your post is pretty much spot on.

[Noble Crassius]

When you quote, put in the whole sentence to avoid distortion.
"I think damage is balanced by the fact that headshots are easier with a crossbow than, say a bow, in my opinion."

you made your opinion, one with no facts behind it at all, a balancing factor - never do this

"You forgot to mention what also balances it out, slow reload speed even with points invested but thats ok too imo."
I was saying in my opinion that it's ok that we still reload quite slow even after paying balls high upkeep and prices. Cuz we should . THAT opinion is based on the fact that we do reload slow.

See the difference between my opinion and yours?

and yes other than that I agree with everything you said.

[Stokes]

When you quote, put in the whole sentence to avoid distortion.
"I think damage is balanced by the fact that headshots are easier with a crossbow than, say a bow, in my opinion."

you made your opinion, one with no facts behind it at all, a balancing factor - never do this

"You forgot to mention what also balances it out, slow reload speed even with points invested but thats ok too imo."
I was saying in my opinion that it's ok that we still reload quite slow even after paying balls high upkeep and prices. Cuz we should . THAT opinion is based on the fact that we do reload slow.

See the difference between my opinion and yours?

and yes other than that I agree with everything you said.

I stated my "facts". If it wasn't clear enough I can edit my original post.  Being able to aim indefinitely allows for greater precision firing which means greater accuracy and a greater chance of getting a headshot. As you pointed out, however, the ability of archers to fire so much faster means that they have more chances of getting a headshot, which could theoretically mean it's "easier" to get a headshot. To be honest, neither of us have any numerical/empirical evidence to fully prove our hypotheses. Both of our "evidence" and "facts" are PURELY ANECDOTAL, which I had hoped that I had made clear, but I am willing to edit my post if you feel I did not make that clear enough.

Btw, this seems to be a pretty nit-picky detail we are discussing, and I don't think it really furthers the discussion about infantry balance as a whole.

[UrLukur]

Aside from the fact that if 2h/Pole is shield counter, and shield is archers/xbows counter, most archers will go 2h or pole to have fighting chances against shielders (sometimes an edge).

So this type of balance is flawed, until there will be implemented good features that will made 1h viable for archers. Best way is to make shielders power level as high as pole/2h. Then, shielders will have edge over archers, poles will have edge against cavalry, and 2h will be good support class, and still better against cav than 1h.

In such situation, archers will have actual choice between 3 options - 1h, 2h and poles. Now 1h ranged are extinct.

[PhantomZero]

I think you missed the biggest point regarding Crossbows vs. Archery.  Archery is there to deal with the crossbows/light infantry/cav/throwers, while crossbows can pound away at the heavy infantry/heavy horse and inflict tons of damage.

Throwing is perfectly fine the way it is at the moment while I would love to see a reduction in the number of slots(or an increase in the weight for every slot used, similar to carrying extra shields) as everyone and their brother can carry a weapon for every situation. Be it a pike for horses, a can opener of your choice, a shield, and some darts or two-handed sword for good measure. You don't actually need any points in polearms to use the pike effectively against horses.

On Cavalry:
The biggest problem which makes cavalry "unbalanced" is the lack of discipline. If people formed groups a cavalryman wouldn't even approach them, because after horsebumping two people they would become stuck in a blob of swords and spears.

When you have a bunch of people spread out to the far winds, it is very easy for a single cavalryman to run through aimlessly hacking away from one side to the other racking up the kills. Light cavalry are supposed to be the flankers, the guys who run down the mob and strike at unprotected archers.

I think cavalry was nerfed too much, too quickly,

An increase in cost:
People only use the palfrey or rouncey now if they want to still use armor, courser or steppe if they are wearing a dress.

Reduction of speed and manueverability:
There goes the slim defense against ranged opponents.

Reduced charge damage:
This was done to the point it is almost useless again mostly due to the decrease of speed double-nerfing charge damage, I thought the high charge damage was the reason for putting in team horsebumping, pick either: High Damage, Friendly Fire, or Low Damage, No Friendly Fire.

Removal of the Long Great Lance:
The entire reason this thing was added to the game was because the Great Lance lost it's thrust. Please bring back the Great Lance's thrust if you are getting rid of the Lance of Compensation. Alternatively, remove the "Press X to couch lance" and cooldown timers instead of returning the thrust, as that was the reason for keeping the Great Lance thrust in the Vanilla beta.

Cavalry will always top the scoreboards because they can cherry pick when and where to attack, you are always fighting against a good cavalryman on their terms and if you suddenly get the upperhand they run off. It is heavily dependent upon map type which is sorely lacking on most NA servers which are filled with city streets and castle-type maps.

[EponiCo]

2h/pole are not shield counters. With many 2h/poles the top level shields can't be broken (at least that was prepatch), and guess what, spam, feints, range (or attacks glitching through the clearly held shield/block) are all things the twohander has to deal with, too, and he hasn't one button to defend from all, or at that point for divining the attack direction when he runs into a bush. That and the much higher risk to get a throwing axe in the face simply necessitates that 2h have more killing potential imo.
But real breakdown would look like this:
Greatswords/Spears are versatile and best against two handers and killing in group, ok against shield, but inferior choice 1vs1
Pikelikes are best for poking unaware people and making greatsworders/cav run away from your group, but it's such an uphill fight against huscarl shield scimitar facehuggers, you'd be sooner juggling snowballs in hell.
Clubs are (at least in theory, which may not be the case with polearm clubs and crushthrough) inferior for fighting against every other weapon choice but deal massive damage to armor.
Which leaves axes as real shield counter, but if you look at their stats, a 1h without shield has some real advantages against them.

And yeah, a 2h player can stack greatsword+hammer+shield, but just so can 1h player stack 1h+throw or archer stack bow+greatsword (which is btw. since it needs 1 slot and several skillpoints less than shield not because it kills every shielder) or ninja stack agility...