Let's Agree On Ranged Damage

[Stabby_Dave]

Balb cant block for shit, lol.
Break his MP shield and u'll see he dies to anyone at least bit decent.

Dude, do you ever read the OP? Ever?
Its about how ranged should be not about how it is.

You're an angry boy aren't you?

On topic: As much as archers infuriate me I feel that they do too little damage atm really. On the rare occasion that me or my horse gets headshotted, it is usually a 1 shot kill but body shots take a ridiculous amount of arrows to kill me. With a Champ Destrier and Lordly SGA, it can sometimes take 10+ arrows to kill me or my horse, even heavier horses are almost impervious.

I would say increase damage done on body shots and increase archer melee ability (with free wpf maybe) to encourage them not to not run away all the time, as most do right now. In return make archers much slower when drawing bows on the move or something to further discourage this behaviour.

[MrShine]

Ranged has extra_penetration, so your argument about how melee have blunt/pierce options is basically invalid since your cut damage is about as good as our pierce.

That's not really true in practice.  Earlier this morning I hit someone with ~55-65 body armor 8 times at medium range - 5 of them glanced doing no damage/stun.  The other three stunned him but they must have done minimal damage because I didn't see any arrows on his corpse.  You can't tell me someone with 4 PD and a pick/blunt damage is going to glance over half the time on someone like that.  I've played plenty of archer and melee, cut damage archery is CERTAINLY not as good as melee blunt/pierce... like at all.

Archers can pick up arrows. And most archers carry 30-40 of them. Plus just because you're an archer doesn't mean that you can't switch to a melee weapon.

True, but if you've gone through 30 arrows in battle there aren't going to be too many people left, and scrounging for arrows while you become a prime target/have infantry closing in isn't really practical... most times it's more worthwhile to find a melee weapon on the ground at that point.  And yes an archer CAN switch to melee... but dedicated archers are going to be lacking in HP, armor, wpf, ps... essentially a fast peasant.  Possible, but not worth considering to the equation.

"...not taking into account blocks and such" Kinda fucking important. Most people on the EU servers can block pretty well nowadays.

I dunno, I get the majority of my melee kills by gang bangs and backstabs, those are usually pretty easy kills.  Sure getting into a "duel" with skilled blockers slows things down, but if you're in the right position you can just mow through people as melee. 

I know this is sidetracking a little bit, but it's important to realize what an archer realistically brings to the table, especially as things are now.  I'll try making some video to show "the day in the life of an archer and maybe that will help.

[MeevarTheMighty]

I agree that this is over simplistic, but as a severely overgeneralised ratio it seems fine. I'd tone down the throwing lances 1 notch, considering throwing is much more open to hybridisation than other ranged classes, maybe a couple of other small tweaks.

[Tennenoth]

To be honest with you, as an experienced archer, using a longbow and 160 wpf it is more than viable to aim for the head reasonably accurate at a close distance (the one that was in the vids). There is a degree of randomness in it at longer ranges of course but as long as you smoothly lead you'll have a decent chance of getting off at least one arrow towards the targets head.

I was still able to pull off accurate shots yesterday with the set up while wearing Black Armour & Greaves (Straw hat & Mail Gauntlets) so accuracy isn't a problem too much with light armour with any bow however I created an alt, who had 5 power draw and as much archery as possible and I have to say, it was very accurate and still had a decent chance of 1 shotting the person to the head. I think when most people talk about a "quick pew pew archer" they are talking about people with horn bows, they're a lot faster than the warbow and particularly the longbow with more accuracy.

Pulling across someone with Masterwork Bodkin arrows & a Masterwork Horn Bow with 5 Power Draw and 160 wpf, they're going to be quite accurate across medium distances, more than likely shooting at targets that don't know they're there so that they can get clean hits.
The pierce damage against the heavier helmets will help significantly in this case, someone with a Barbutte for example holding onto 50 head armour will be quite squishy with the current loadout.


Bodged and broken calculations I was going to use as evidence however I need to actually know the statistics behind what I am saying. The numbers are all guesses from previous knowledge and have probably moved on quite a lot. For example, I thought PD increased damage by 8% per level, the wiki says it increase it by 14%. But all the same, i've done the calculations if you want to look, it's roughly correct for the most part, at some point in time, whether or not i've created it from thin air! 

Also, afaik, these are best case scenarios. To be brutally honest with you though, I think what I have written in this spoiler is a load of bollocks.

(click to show/hide)

Now, my figures are going to be off somewhat here, but i'm sure this will get you the general jist of what I am trying to say;

Masterwork Horn Bow: 26 Damage
Masterwork Bodkins: +2 Damage & Pierce
5 Power Draw: +40% Damage (+70%)
Total: 26+2=28, 28+40%=39.2 pierce damage.  (47.6)

Headshot: +125% damage therefore;

End Damage before Native multipliers == 88.2 pierce damage.  (107.1)

That's nice and high and is sure to make a lasting impression onto the soldiers head even if they are running around with decent armour and i'm sure my calculations are wrong somewhere along the lines (particularly because I believe there is another basic headshot damage multiplier that I haven't added this calculation & I haven't done any armour soak etc. Also I haven't added wpf damage increase either. I THINK that would give but i'm pretty sure it's wrong.:

160 * 0.14 = 22.4%;    88.2 + 22.4% = 107.9568 pierce damage (131.0904 pierce damage)

[Penitent]

Looking at the poll, it looks like your estimates are pretty close to what the player base thinks is fair.  That largest vote goes to "its close, just needs minor tweaks."  Close behind it are "needs less hits" and "needs more hits" in about equal proportions.  This tells me you're about spot on.

[_Sebastian_]

(click to show/hide)

Now, my figures are going to be off somewhat here, but i'm sure this will get you the general jist of what I am trying to say;

Masterwork Horn Bow: 26 Damage
Masterwork Bodkins: +2 Damage & Pierce
5 Power Draw: +40% Damage (+70%)
Total: 26+2=28, 28+40%=39.2 pierce damage.  (47.6)

Headshot: +125% damage therefore;

End Damage before Native multipliers == 88.2 pierce damage.  (107.1)

That's nice and high and is sure to make a lasting impression onto the soldiers head even if they are running around with decent armour and i'm sure my calculations are wrong somewhere along the lines (particularly because I believe there is another basic headshot damage multiplier that I haven't added this calculation & I haven't done any armour soak etc. Also I haven't added wpf damage increase either. I THINK that would give but i'm pretty sure it's wrong.:

160 * 0.14 = 22.4%;    88.2 + 22.4% = 107.9568 pierce damage (131.0904 pierce damage)

(26 + 2) * (160 * 0.01 * 0.15 + 0.85) * 5 * 0.14 + 1) + 15 / 5
=54.88p basedamage on 0 armor and 0m range



headshot damage = 210%(prepatch) * 125% = 262.5%
54.88 * 262.5%
=144.06p (115.25p prepatch)

bodyshot damage = 100%(prepatch) * 67% = 67%
54.88 * 67%
=36.77p (54.88p prepatch)

legshot damage = 80%(prepatch) * 67% = 53.6%
54.88 * 53.6%
=29.42p (43.90p prepatch)

Notice the damage is on 0 armor and at a range of 0 meters.

[MrShine]

Thanks for the replies so far.  I'm fairly happy with my bow/xbow numbers, but I don't know much about throwers - would it be best to break it into 3 classes - light, medium, heavy?  Should I just ignore throwing lances as a gimmick weapon and focus numbers on the other weapons? 

Halp.

[Tennenoth]

(26 + 2) * (160 * 0.01 * 0.15 + 0.85) * 5 * 0.14 + 1) + 15 / 5
=54.88p basedamage on 0 armor and 0m range



headshot damage = 210%(prepatch) * 125% = 262.5%
54.88 * 262.5%
=144.06p (115.25p prepatch)

bodyshot damage = 100%(prepatch) * 67% = 67%
54.88 * 67%
=36.77p (54.88p prepatch)

legshot damage = 80%(prepatch) * 67% = 53.6%
54.88 * 53.6%
=29.42p (43.90p prepatch)

Notice the damage is on 0 armor and at a range of 0 meters.

Cheers, I knew someone would have the real figures and be able to work it out! Just needed to coax people with my inaccurate babble! ;)

[gbu_lue]

Quite honestly, I haven't noticed that much of a change in my K:D or killing other people in general with any of the patches.  Just pony up and play.  As an archer, just KS srsly.

[Malaclypse]

Man I really wish the changes didn't affect throwing. GG on giving Stones, one of the most accurate, fastest shooting projectiles in the game, insane headshot damage lol. Goddamn FrugFrug.

[Wraist]

I think the 210% prepatch is on the raw damage, and the 125% is on the final damage, and likewise further down.

[Rusty_Shacklefjord]

There are some good points ITT.

I think some of the most important factors that were mentioned are that archers can hit from far away (and can often just run away if attacked) without giving melee players any chance to retaliate, and that even if an archer runs out of ammo, they still have the ability to pick up more, or to just use their melee weapon instead. It's comparable to a cavalry player getting de-horsed. They're less effective as infantry, but that doesn't mean that they can't do it.

Personally, I think that ranged is better when it's weaker. 3-5 arrows to take down a medium-armored enemy (~40-45 armor) is more than reasonable. It takes as many hits with many melee weapons, and you're able to attack with a disposable weapon from a safe distance. Even if you can't always kill an enemy with full health (and they won't always BE at full health) from across the map, one or two hits will weaken him significantly while, again, leaving you safe and unharmed.

cRPG is at the point now where I can't even enter a battle without being pelted by arrows. I have to slink around on the edges of the map, or spend the entire round hiding behind a building, for fear of being OHKO'd by a far-off enemy that I didn't even see. If I'm attacked by a group of enemies and there's an archer with them, I'm forced to run - not from the infantry, whose attacks I'm perfectly capable of blocking - but from the archer, who's free to sit 10m away and spam arrows at me while I'm trying to fight.

I spent a month playing Native recently, and I found that archers dominate on those servers. So much so that I absolutely HAD to have a shield if I wanted to survive for more than 30 seconds. That sort of shooting gallery gameplay is extremely frustrating, and even when I did well it was unsatisfying and unfun.

I'm not saying that archery should be weak and useless - but it should NOT have the same killing power as a melee weapon. Make it weakER. Make it survivable for those of us without a suit of +3 heavy plate and a huscarl shield. Ranged weapons should be support primarily.

As far as crossbows are concerned, I think that most of what I said above still applies. Just take reload speeds into account and adjust damage proportionately. I won't opine on throwing, since I don't have much experience there.