Bodkins and Archery: An Inconvenient Truth

[Fluffy_Muffin]

As it was said many many times before; You cant remove jump slashing because people would just camp places where you need to jump to and kill the ones that attempt to jump....

[Brutal]

The inconveniant true is that it is just way harder for a decent player to get a good k/D ratio with an archer than any other class (especially with non loomed weapons).

If you think I'm wrong either you didn't try archery or you play it 95% of the time . Ask Paul stats don't lie.

[Cup1d]

( I am not talking about accuracy, just about possibility )

Great suggestion.
No, really.

It's possible to kill all enemy team as 1 level peasant with stone in hand.
I am not talking about chances, just about possibility


It's possible to parry all hits with bare hands.
I am not talking about chances, just about possibility


It's possible to marry C.H.A.D.Z.
I am not talking about chances, just about possibility



TBH Xant even in your video Achilles have a pivot. Not just jump, slash-block-slash, then land.
 

[Xant]

TBH Xant even in your video Achilles have a pivot. Not just jump, slash-block-slash, then land.

Well yes, no one would jump and attack exactly like in c-RPG, of course. Limit of the animations. Same goes for everything, from running to attacking - far from how one would do it IRL.

[karasu]

It's easy to speak hot headed and whine about things, but try every class in the game at least 1 full generation and then remake every single judgement.

I for once have the "advantage" of having played 7 gens as an skirmisher (bow+2h), 4 gens polearmer, 4 gens cavalry, 3 gens 2 hander, 1 gen 1h/shielder, 2 gens crossbower, 1gen thrower, 1gen HA,  etc... All this alongside on all my characters ofc (the main has only 16 gens), making me realize every single tiny bit of info regarding all the play styles and when I have a doubt, I kindly ask a dev about it, or simple, go pure retard into the code and get some headaches.
And no, I'm not a mentally damage lobbyist hypocrite like leshma kindly stated, for those who're wondering.

[Leshma]

about jumpslashing:

i don`t know of any fighting techiques with jumpslashing...when its realistic i want a link to that plz...need to learn it xD only because i`m interested in it because i fighting in reallife, being in a fencing school...learning german school fencing like in the late medieval times.

though i would like it better ingame when no one can jumpslash/jumpshot. melee need control over swing(swinging power comes from body not from arms) and range need precision(already worse by jumping and no jumpshooting anymore)

How about this, jumplashing is fun!

War simulator? German fencing school?

Dude if I wanted to play something historically accurate just because it's historically accurate, I would play M&M with Gnjus. But I find that incredibly boring.

If you guys somehow turn this mod into two armies fighting like those Mithras guys are fighting, I certainly wouldn't play that because I find it incredibly boring.

I play this game because it's fun to be swordsmen, there are so many techniques and different approaches. Start taking some of those away and people like me will find another mod where that's possible.

Yes there are lot of "I's" but that's because I don't really care about balance anymore. I care about myself and every my post and every thread I make will be me trying to buff myself. Most people are like that, at least I'm honest enough to admit it.

Also about archery, I believe that Kafein hit the spot when he talked about archery from his perspective as a cav. When you finally, somehow approach the archer of course you should kill him. I can't throw my swords at you from distance I only can fight when I'm close enough. Why should archery or any other ranged class have the luxury to be good both at distance and in close combat? Ranged classes should always have worse stats than non ranged. Archers not performing very well in general isn't fault of archery, it's about people who play archery being bad players in general.

[dreadnok]

WARNING! THIS THREAD IS FUCKING LONG

There are a lot of archery threads around right now.

A lot of people are saying a lot of things about archery. 
Archery is EZ-mode.
Archery is under-powered. 
Archery is broken because of bodkins. 
Archery kills in 2-3 hits. 
Archers should avoid firing into melee. 
Archers should fire into melee. 
Archery is over powered. 

Archery is for pussies.

Everyone has something to say about archery, but there never seems to be enough hard evidence.
I'm hoping that I can at least provide some context with this thread, so at the very least we can frame the archer whine-fest with a semblance of truth.

What I did:

I spent some time during the course of a few days to keep track of the amount of hits it took me to kill a wide assortment of poor suckers helpful test subjects, using a controlled distance while recording what their strength, ironflesh, and total body armor (chest + gloves) were.  I would kill each subject 1-3 times from short, medium, and long range.  In the end I had roughly 25 kills from each range, or about 75 individual tests in all.  Still plenty of room for variation, but enough tests that the findings should hold up fairly well.

The Facts of the Experiment:

My Build:  At the time of the test my build was 17/21.  I had 5 Power Draw, and 163 archery wpf.  I had an effective armor weight of 5, so a negligible decrease in effective weapon proficiency.

My Equipment: I used a Masterworked Horn Bow (27 cut) and Masterworked Bodkins (4 pierce) for a raw 31 pierce damage.  This is 1 more pierce than a vanilla Rus Bow and vanilla Bodkins, and 1 less pierce than a vanilla Long Bow and vanilla Bodkins.  Therefore please note that my damage is probably around the mid range for archers who use Bodkins at this time (more powerful than most non-loomed bows, but a bit less powerful than the heirloomed 2-slot archers out there). 

My Distance Interpretation:  I told test subjects to stand by the dead tree centered in the pictures below (the one with bodies all around it; I affectionately refer to it now as "the murder tree"), and I would target body shots from the location you see me take my screenshots from.  I know that these distances are arbitrary, but in the heat of battle I consider these to be rough guidelines of what constitutes practical 'short, medium, and long' shots.

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My Findings:

Against Targets With 80+ HP:
Most hits to kill: 9  (Target: 80 hp, 72 body armor.  Long distance shots)
Least hits to kill: 4  (Target: 87 hp, 54 body armor AND 85 hp 71 body armor.  Occurred on short & mid distance shots)
Average hits to kill from short range:  5.3 (out of 9 total tests)
Average hits to kill from medium range:  5.5 (out of 8 total tests)
Average hits to kill from long range: 6.125  (out of 8 total tests)

Against Targets with 64-76 HP:
Most hits to kill:  7  (Target: 76 hp, 68 body armor.  Long distance shots)
Least hits to kill:  3  (Target: 65 hp, 52 body armor.  Short distance shots)
Average hits to kill from short range:  4.08  (out of 12 total tests)
Average hits to kill from medium range:  4  (out of 12 total tests)
Average hits to kill from long range:  4.25  (out of 12 total tests)

Against Targets with 62 or less HP:  Note: A level 1 peasant was included in this round which may lower average hits to kill numbers slightly
Most hits to kill:  3  (Target:  55 hp, 46 body armor.  Long distance shots)
Least hits to kill: 1  (Target: 38 hp,  9 body armor.  Any distance shots)
Average hits to kill from short range:  1.57  (out of 7 total tests)
Average hits to kill from medium range: 1.4  (out of 5 total tests)
Average hits to kill from long range:  1.6  (out of 5 total tests)

(light armor tests need more work; not enough tests and peasant testing threw numbers.  Without the peasant included tests would average 2 hits for short and medium range, 2.5 for long)

My Conclusions:

More testing will need to be done now that I have 6 power draw.  But ultimately I don't think that bodkins are quite as overpowered as people seem to say regarding the heavy armored tincans. 

Bodkins will kill tin cans in about 5 or 6 hits on the average.
Bodkins will kill mid-heavy troops in about 4 hits on the average.
Bodkins will kill lighter troops in about 2-3 hits on the average.

Keep in mind there are going to be a lot of archers that use non heirloomed bows, or use cut type arrows, and in those cases their average hit-to-kill numbers will probably be from 1 to many hits higher on the average (esp. when dealing with tin cans).  Similarly there will be heirloomed heavy power draw longbowmen who will probably bring the average hits to kill number down by 1 max (so maybe 4-5 for tin cans, 3 for mid-heavy, 2 for lighter).

Other hunches; general things I found interesting:
-hp mattered more than armor for survival
-distance didn't seem to make AS large a difference as I originally thought.  Perhaps I wasn't far enough away on my 'long' tests
-If you are a standard infantry type with decent (50 ish) body armor you'll likely survive 4 hits from archers in general.  It takes quite a bit of strength and armor to reliably survive 5 or more, so it probably isn't worth it.
-board shield w/ 600 hp survived 20 arrows. Low armor, but I did about 30 damage a shot.  Shields rule basically for ranged (duh)

I'll see if I can update more when I have time.

E: I almost forgot:  Thanks to everyone who gave a bit of time FOR SCIENCE!
Credits to test subjects:
Sageroth
Jeff
Captain_Insano_WCO
Passion
Assassino_Extremo
Sedurut
Wolfgang
Blade
Voester
Morr
Gzack
Tom_Cruise
Ninja_blood
Wintersong
Ninja_djnipsy
Grandpa Joe Has altheimers (thanks for skewing the results you peasant jerk!)

but your leaving out the biggest part tho. a headshot kills anyone in 1 hit no matter what armor

[Player_01]

but your leaving out the biggest part tho. a headshot kills anyone in 1 hit no matter what armor

Not if that person is a level 35 full str build with 15 IF and a x3 loomed Armet.

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[Tears of Destiny]

Fantastic original post, rubbish thread though.

[Gisbert_of_Thuringia]

I got the impression that you were sayin that he couldnt do it because of weight/movement restrictions.

Hence i said he could, if he wanted to.

Is it practial? No

Can he do it? Sure

And thats why it shouldnt be removed, cause if i want to do it i can.

I could also draw a bow and jump in the moment I release the arrow 



@Xant: If you consider film fights as realistic I'm out of this thread 

How about this, jumplashing is fun!

How about this, jumpshooting was fun!      stupid comment Leshma 

I play this game because it's fun to be swordsmen, there are so many techniques and different approaches.

Aha, and destroying the fun archers have is ok just because you want to play your swordsman?  Seriously?   

Also about archery, I believe that Kafein hit the spot when he talked about archery from his perspective as a cav. When you finally, somehow approach the archer of course you should kill him. I can't throw my swords at you from distance I only can fight when I'm close enough. Why should archery or any other ranged class have the luxury to be good both at distance and in close combat? Ranged classes should always have worse stats than non ranged. Archers not performing very well in general isn't fault of archery, it's about people who play archery being bad players in general.

Who says archers are good at melee?  The only thing we can do is block.  WOOHHOO!!!    It is so fucking easy to kill an archer in melee because of the lack of wpf you can easily outspam him.
Killing an archer with cav when you are close is easy as well, as most guys start bumping them when they manage to downblock (oh yeah it's very hard to block one direction^^) and that way they easily get their kill.

I know enough good cavplayers who can easily kill an archer. Maybe you guys should improve you skills?

but your leaving out the biggest part tho. a headshot kills anyone in 1 hit no matter what armor

Every tried headshotting for example captain georgeous (or whatever his name is written like^^) with a mw longbow, mw bodkins and 6pd and 8wm?

Won't work. I tested it on duel server with him, you can't do it with a bow. Maybe it's possible with a throwing lance or arbalest, but with no kind of bow.

And there are some other guys aswell with loomed heavy helmets. Headshotkilling them doesn't work with bows.

Please talk about stuff you know 

[BlueKnight]

Great suggestion.
No, really.

It's possible to kill all enemy team as 1 level peasant with stone in hand.
I am not talking about chances, just about possibility


It's possible to parry all hits with bare hands.
I am not talking about chances, just about possibility


It's possible to marry C.H.A.D.Z.
I am not talking about chances, just about possibility



TBH Xant even in your video Achilles have a pivot. Not just jump, slash-block-slash, then land.

And what is that about? I wanted to say that archery is a weapon with nearly infinite range. It's like if you had a pike with 200 000 range and if it was only blockable with shield.

BTW. Have you enjoyed your lesson about possibilities?

[MrShine]

So yeah, can we stop clogging this thread up with arguments about jump-slashing and other things that have nothing to do with the thread?  I'm not some ON TOPIC chocolate chip cookie but DAMN.

In response to one of the few on-topic posts I see on this page:

but your leaving out the biggest part tho. a headshot kills anyone in 1 hit no matter what armor

Headshot from an archer will usually 1-hit kill, but if you are far enough away it will just do a good dent.  It is also much harder to headshot someone from range than it is to hit them in the head with a swing, so I personally don't think this is too much of a problem.

[Xant]

@Xant: If you consider film fights as realistic I'm out of this thread 

I knew you'd bring that up. Too easy.

So you claim that was computer animated? That wasn't really Brad Pitt (or a stuntman, but let's hope Brad doesn't need a stuntman to jump..) jumping? A real human being couldn't possibly jump like that?

[Gisbert_of_Thuringia]

I neither said that this wasn't possible nor that he didn't do it himself ;)

It is the same about jumping in plate with heavy weapons etc.
It is possible, but noone would do it in a realfight due to the big danger that it brings.

[Xant]

I neither said that this wasn't possible nor that he didn't do it himself ;)

It is the same about jumping in plate with heavy weapons etc.
It is possible, but noone would do it in a realfight due to the big danger that it brings.

And who are you to speak for everyone?