Archery - Current state and proposed solution

[Elerion]

Background:
The newest patch has changed archery significantly. It is now weaker, and in most experienced archers' views, less fun to play in public play. The background for the change was presumably to weaken archery in preparation for Strategus, to avoid as chadz called it, "another archer fest in Strategus". I present an alternative solution.

Assumptions:

• Archery was not overpowered for public play prior to this patch. (Reference: On NA servers, there were 3 foot archers in the top 75 K:D players. Only one of these was pure archery: Loki on 75th place. >Source<)
• Archery was too powerful in Strategus due to the nature of organized play, cheap loadout, map layout, and low amount of armor worn by all players.

Proposed solution:

• For Strategus, allow only one type of arrow to be bought, let's for the sake of argument call them "Strategus Arrows":
  - Strategus Arrows are significantly more expensive than regular arrows, perhaps on the level of Bodkins. This makes the cost of a standard archer loadout for Strategus more in line with a melee unit. It would also make it very expensive to outfit archers with enough arrows to stand on a hill and spam all day long.
  - Strategus Arrows have a negative damage modifier. We know Warband allows this, as low end Native arrows have negative damage. The appropriate level would have to be discussed, but given the weak armor normally worn in Strategus, I don't think -5 damage would be terrible.
  
• Given the above, revert archery to the state it was before this patch. Public balance should be back to where it was, where archery is enjoyable, but not dominant.

Comments?

Public play as used in this post refers to Battle and Siege, where most of us spend almost all of our play time.

[Vibe]

Have to agree with this.

[Everkistus]

You are a true scholar. Very good idea, as this would both make archery fun to play as solo, and not OP in strategus.

[PhantomZero]

I don't know, I never really played a battle outside of siege where archers were too overpowered, they definitely had an effect, but I never experienced an issue where they would be considered "overpowered". I would be supportive of making strategus arrows more expensive or something, but I see no reason to force people to buy a single type of arrow that does -damage. If the archers are standing on a hill, why the fuck would you even get near it?

If you have some video showcasing the rape of all before them by archers, I would like to see it. This was one of the reasons why 2H stuck to siege battles in strategus.

It seems like a better solution would just be to have the battles have a mandatory end time. This is probably needed anyways to avoid 6 hour long fights.

Archers are the primary deterrent to 2H. Do you want Strategus to just become a 2Hfest like all the battle servers? They also are effective against cav if the cav can be kept at range, do you want strategus to become Cavfest?

[Tears of Destiny]

+1 to the Original Post.


It seems silly to have nerfed Archery because it was not supposed to dominate Strategus, yet... Strategus has not yet come out?

<3

[Remy]

B...b....brillant!

[Cyclopsided]

I like this post.

[Seawied]

Good idea. +1 to you sir.

[Vibe]

nice comment

[mandible/splinteryourjaw]

I would also submit that arrows should detrmine type of damage not bows. 

For example a bow should be classified as capable of a generic 24 damage and when used with the normal arrows (+2 pierce) and barbed arrows (+4) this damage should be calculated as cut (as thier main purpose was limited pierce and the real damage was then done by the edges of the arrowhead cutting and causing massive bleeding.) 

The Tartar and Bodkins, when used with a 24 damage bow, should cause mainly pierce damage (as they were intended to pierce mail and light plate) resulting in the 24 damage bow causing 29 pierce damage and 30 pierce damage respectively.

All these references to bodkins/tartar not being able to pierce armor  (and the subsequent flawed video footage by a historian pretending to be a scientist) should be  evaluated with caution.  Special consideration should be given to the fact that the armor the testers were trying to replicate was that seen in the late phase of the medieval ages, as firearms were beginning to appear (excluding Chinese) and archery was losing its effectiveness.  I personally consider this guy's "experiments" to be flawed in many ways.  The middle ages lasted nearly 1000 years, but it seems we are only considering the last 50 years when assessing archery potentials.

It is silly to say a bow only does cut damage as the bow simply determines flight path and energy.  Having a cut arrow pierce plate is also as silly as having a 2h sword causing a 40 cut damage to plate.  Nothing around then could cut plate or steel, pierce was the name of the game once armor arrived...why do swords have pointy ends?

JMHO

[Tavuk_Bey]

hahaha current state with the archers is amazing, keep this forever. arrows had been always more expensive than any other weaponry, that's why king edward sent the irish infrantry before archer volleys in battle of falkirk.

this is awesome and really realistic    archers deal with it..

[Tears of Destiny]

I would also submit that arrows should detrmine type of damage not bows. 

Impossible, unfortunately.

[Skurcey]

Impossible, unfortunately.

It s possible, you can just make combinaison of both and change player stats in real time, when he equip the bow

[Tears of Destiny]

It s possible, you can just make combinaison of both and change player stats in real time, when he equip the bow

O_o

Mind demonstrating that line of code?

[Skurcey]

not in script, but chadz told me once he could change stats in real time.


in event fire or such:
if (type_of_arrow_1 is equiped) then { power_draw += 1 }
elseif (type_of_arrow_2 is equiped) {power_draw +=3; wpp += 50 }