Armor: Effectiveness vs Melee and Ranged

[Dezilagel]

So, from my understanding, ranged (apart from throwing, who has only recently been included) has had the extra_penetration flag ever since the new armor values, essentially bypassing the change.

Why?

Seriously, I've been stacking up on armor last month just to try and survive the ranged barrage, only to discover that the only thing it allows me/others to do is sometimes take 5-6 hits in melee (I'm sorry, but I don't think it's that much fun, regardless if I'm the guy taking the hits or delivering them), while ranged still bring me down in 2-3 shots if loomed (Or arbalest).

This has now lead to a metagame where meleeing becomes a tedious process - it used to be the quickest way of eliminating your opponents, now it's one of the slower with lancers and loomed ranged providing the real killing power as average armor increases.

And now with ranged gaining greater access to pierce damage weps, I feel even less inclined to use any type of armor other than for the sake of suviving more hits in melee.

But I can already survive hits in melee, I can block melee attacks!

The primary source of unblockable damage on the other hand, which is the type of damage you need defence against since you can't do much about it, ranged, gets a free pass and makes your armor much less effective.

It doesn't make any sense imho, I want to wear armor so that I can actually get into melee to do my thing.

A lot of people (as you probably have noticed) are currently stacking str/armor just because it allows you to take an incredible amount of melee punishment. This is not fun imo, I'm in their face with a big fucking axe, and they can actually defend against it - I want some killing power!

So suggestion:

Same armor reduction values for both melee and ranged - I'd prefer slightly reduced values overall while keeping soak low.

EDIT: Modified topic name to better display what this is about

EDIT 568: Stats.

armor_soak_factor_against_cut       = 0.65
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce    = 0.5
armor_soak_factor_against_blunt     = 0.4

armor_reduction_factor_against_cut       = 1.6
armor_reduction_factor_against_pierce    = 1.1
armor_reduction_factor_against_blunt     = 1.3

crpg penetration flag(applied modification for bows, crossbows and thrown)

armor_soak_factor_against_cut       = 0.78
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce    = 0.6
armor_soak_factor_against_blunt     = 0.48

armor_reduction_factor_against_cut       = 0.96
armor_reduction_factor_against_pierce    = 0.36 (!) EDIT: This maybe a typo from the guy I copied from, 1.1*0.6=0.66, anyone know about this?
armor_reduction_factor_against_blunt     = 0.78

(click to show/hide)

Before patch ranged did a lot of damage, and melee did a lot of damage. You could choose to wear armor to get decent protection against both. While you could argue that the damage dealt overall was too high, at least it was fair. (btw the random glancing was a bunch of bullcrap, thx for getting rid of that)

If you wear a lot of armor nowadays you still get the same decent protection against ranged, but now it also makes you an incredible melee tank. While in theory "compensated for" by the reduction in glances, increased melee skill (= better blocking, but also a more potent offence meaning that the average player wouldn't have had much of a problem with glancing in the first place!) in combination with more looms (and let's do a recap here, which are the most potent looms...? Ranged and armor right!) makes for an increasing imbalance.

[Thucydides]

this, i wear armor for teammates and range, not melee

[Paul]

no

armor protects from ranged well enough. also, for 1hit fun in melee play some native.

[Leshma]

Make overhead swing faster and I'll be satisfied

But on the other hand, that would probably end like this in most cases:

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[Thucydides]

no

armor protects from ranged well enough. also, for 1hit fun in melee play some native.

NOT WELL ENOUGH DAMNIT. NERF RANGE.

[Lichen]

With the changes to archery (once they are working properly) I think things won't be so bad as far as archers go. Reason is if archers want pierce damage all the time they must use bodkins which are expensive and low ammo. Crossbows I think it might be a good idea to make them the same as bows (damage type determined by ammo). Have different bolt types available (cut & pierce) with pierce obviously being much more expensive. Maybe around as much as (or more than) bodkin prices. I think it would add more diversity and interesting gameplay to have crossbows more than just pierce damage. You could have multiple types of pierce and cut bolts each. For example 0cut-3cut-8cut bolts/1pierce-4pierce-8pierce bolts etc.

[Leshma]

15x2 ain't low ammo and bodkins aren't that expensive. Don't trust dedicated archers, they are lying in most cases. Using 2xbodkins and a Long bow I was making shit ton of money on my archer. Simply put archery is still money making machine, it's just that they were used to almost zero upkeep before...

[Dezilagel]

lol @ the guy who -1'nd Leshma...

Anyways:

I'm not proposing that armor should become OP or useless, I'm just asking for an armor tweak so that it's actually useful to have armor vs ranged while removing some of the insane melee tankability it now gives.

Currently I myself have stacked armor so high that it's actually decent vs ranged (decent means I still take 1/3'd or more from loomed archers), but it makes me such a tank in melee I think it's OP.

@ Paul - I don't want 1-shot melee galore, I just think that me surviving 6-7 hits at times is a bit much.

[Old_Sir_Agor]

With the changes to archery (once they are working properly) I think things won't be so bad as far as archers go. Reason is if archers want pierce damage all the time they must use bodkins which are expensive and low ammo. Crossbows I think it might be a good idea to make them the same as bows (damage type determined by ammo). Have different bolt types available (cut & pierce) with pierce obviously being much more expensive. Maybe around as much as (or more than) bodkin prices. I think it would add more diversity and interesting gameplay to have crossbows more than just pierce damage. You could have multiple types of pierce and cut bolts each. For example 0cut-3cut-8cut bolts/1pierce-4pierce-8pierce bolts etc.

lol you know arbalest price? and you say about making bolts more expesive then bodkins, no way ty, with bow you can shoot 10 times more then with arbalest, thats why it has big dmg.

and also, if i shoot tincans from big distance some of they need 3 shoots from mw arbalest, and sometimes it is rain -.-

[MrShine]

15x2 ain't low ammo and bodkins aren't that expensive. Don't trust dedicated archers, they are lying in most cases. Using 2xbodkins and a Long bow I was making shit ton of money on my archer. Simply put archery is still money making machine, it's just that they were used to almost zero upkeep before...

When I went archer after the upkeep patch that made arrows more expensive I lost 40k gold leveling to ~29 until I decided to start alternating them with cheaper arrows.  I've played a lot of other classes and can say that was one of the few times I found myself struggling with cash flow; most of the time as a 2h or 1h/shield I end up making a substantial sum of cash, and that's with a much more expensive loadout.  So I don't know what you're smoking when you say you made a shit ton of money as an archer.

Still though, with the recent changes to bodkins offering pierce I think it's a fair tradeoff.  There is now a legitimate difference between bodkins and other arrows that warrants the increased upkeep cost.

[Dezilagel]

Off topic

Off topic

All I care about is my arbalest. Arbalest. Arbalest mmmm... (Def off topic)

Off topic

Troll Jokes aside - sure it's nice to see some "+" and "-", but if it's not too much to ask I'd like some more detailed input on the suggestion at hand.

Agree/Disagree? Why? Any additional ideas?

I dunno, maybe this post is in vain but I'm trying to see here what people actually think of this, or if they care at all.

[Bjord]

Fucking devs, man.

I think some archers reached office in the senate, because there's some schmerious lobbying going on.

[Xant]

Yeah, at first I was like yo and then I was like black dude what? Finally I was pretty much like y'know...

Fuck'm. Fucking senators, man. Backstabbers like Brutus.

[_JoG_]

That's funny... In last Strategus most battles were won by cav and ranged (even though chadz said he wanted to make melee > ranged). Balancing team decision: let's buff archers (by making every bow do pierce damage and increase xbow reloading speed) and cavalry (by increasing horsebump damage), while nerfing melee with by making group and formation fighting pretty complicated with this teamhit thingy.

[Fips]

15x2 ain't low ammo and bodkins aren't that expensive. Don't trust dedicated archers, they are lying in most cases. Using 2xbodkins and a Long bow I was making shit ton of money on my archer. Simply put archery is still money making machine, it's just that they were used to almost zero upkeep before...

Trololol...i am losing way more money as an archer than when i was melee. Even if i don't carry my mw langes messer around and instead of it the 0slot-hammer i am still losing alot of money with mw horn and mw bodkins (2 of them ofc). And i do have a lot of x4 or x5-multis.

@topic: Problem, meleemy old friends?