Post Patch balance issues. (TLTR: Nerf Archers,check Armour Weights)

[MrShine]

...Of course its hard to see this if your one of those archers with +3 rus bow an bodkin arrows and 7 PD running around an playing legolass but for Cav 2h polearms shielders its horrible to play battle now because u can hardly take a look around a every corner an not get your chest full of arrows within matter of seconds....

Its really just a matter of risk vs reward that is the problem with archers an i think many people hate archers only for the fact that they can deal the same if not more dmg then themself from range an run all day to avoid melee.

cRPG needs ranged, and it needs cav.  Without those classes battles become a big melee orgy where map doesn't matter and both sides collide in the middle every single time.  While its fun for a little bit it gets old VERY fast and I would be willing to put hard money down that if this mod had archery/cavalry removed (which some people on these servers seem dedicated to) the whole 'At fifteen, I had the will to  learn ; at thirty, I could stand ; at forty, I had no  doubts ; at fifty, I understood the heavenly Bidding ;  at sixty, my ears were opened ; at seventy, I could  do as my heart lusted without trespassing from the  square.' thing would become more of a reality than it is now a reality.

I play NA so I'm not familiar with how things are on EU right now, but NA has a bunch of archers too and while there may not be quite as much there are still plenty every round that force good decision making that I think I'm on pretty solid ground to make a rebuttal.

Archery isn't anywhere close to being a 'no risk' class.  It has plenty of risk that balances the reward.

a) you typically have worse melee skills
b) you typically have less hp
c) you typically have a smaller selection of available melee weaponry
d) you typically wear the lightest armor
e) you become target numero uno for cavalry, other ranged units, archer-hungry shielders, and ninjas.   Couple this with...
f) it becomes more of a challenge to position yourself correctly and aim correctly while being aware of your surroundings at the same time

= in order to be a successful archer you have to be on your toes at all times, because it only takes one slip up in your awareness and one extra second of inattentiveness to your surroundings and you can be killed by cavalry or jumped by infantry or sniped by an enemy xbowmen that was scoping you out.  Archers are complete fodder when they are caught unawares, much more than ANY other class in the game because an archer typically won't be able to absorb enough blows from the surprise attack to be able to defend themselves.

So I direct you and others who are complaining about archery to my earlier post, but for the lazy I'll summarize some suggestions on how to avoid being shot to death:

-be aware of your surroundings (firing lanes, open spots, etc).  If it is covered by archers go somewhere else or find a shielder buddy
-buy a god damn shield (honestly just 1 or 2 points and a board shield is in your future)
-If all else fails, simply find a different target instead of running into the open field alone with 4 archers shooting at you.  Shielders, shielder cav, and ranged units are much better equipped at handling a nest of archers than you are, so don't even try it until they've caused the distration.

[Rogue_Eagle]

Archers are what suppress the REALLY GOOD MELEE PLAYERS. In Aus, without archers the games would almost always go to one team.

[Zanze]

Your entire argument screams nerf anything that is not a dedicated 2h. Now, Archers and Cav, next shielders and pikes, then maulers. Etc.

[Thomek]

Zanze, no my argument is my argument.

in +3 lamellar i can take 3 shots from a HA. (Pawlo)

Every single other archer: Nebun, Radh, KMC etc 2 shot me consistently.

If it keeps going like this light armor 2h is dead in this mod.. Nerf archery now before they become too many.

[Casimir]

I suggest you wear some better armour if you want to survive more than 2 shots from an archer. remember they are all using MW bows and arrows, its hardly surprising they kill you in two shots...


cant be super fast 2h spam / high power thrower / tin can all at the same time you know mate.  maybe give it up it doesn't sound fun.

[Zanze]

Get hit by a masterwork pierce damage weapon at the same movespeed bonus and PS and you'll probably be two shotted as well.

[Thomek]

anyhow.. is it right that archers should do more damage than a mw melee weapon? (40c mw katana 6ps)

[Winterly]

Personally, I'm a Shielder and don't believe archers need a nerf, however the Armor weights and Cav pose a huge problem

[Kay of Sauvage]

Archery could be nerfed to 1/10th of its current damage and people would still be complaining about archers in groups.  Archers are best in tandem with their teammates because enemy movement patterns become much easier to trace when they are focusing on melee combat.  Saying archery needs nerfing because they excel using teamwork is a poor argument and one I pray the devs will never seriously consider.

Same issues come up with cavalry and pikemen: Alone they are easily counterable, but they shine with teammates to distract the enemy.

Here's my suggestion: buff your battle awareness.  Keeping your head on a swivel ( '~' key spam), avoiding areas where you'll become easy archer/cav food and knowing how far to push into enemy lines are absolute essentials for survival.  I pride myself in my battle awareness, and throughout all my playtime I've never once truly feared cavalry.  The only time I've ever truly feared archery is when I was an archer myself, because two archers targeting you can effectively lock your shooting down completely.

TLDR people continue to ask to nerf archery, when in reality they want to nerf teamwork (which won't happen).  Therefore instead of complaining about archery players need to adapt and fine tune their battle sense to avoid situations that put them in harms way.

I think you're making a lot of exaggerations to make a point.

First of all, it's a stretch to call that teamwork. Attacking an enemy that is busy attacking another ally of yours is basic to any class, otherwise the game would just be a bunch of duels. It's hardly great teamwork for archers to fire into enemies that are trying to fight allies in front of them. Who else would they be shooting if it wasn't the enemy melee troops that are engaged with their allies? They shoot what they see, and the easier the shot the better. That's not some grand strategy to be praised. Their ability to do this isn't the issue. Even weakened archers would be effective doing that since they'd be stunning the enemy and opening them up for free hits.

The issue with archers isn't the same as what other classes are doing. Sure, pikes have long reach and are great to overwhelm other infantry when used in a group, similar in effect to fighting 2 enemies that surround you at once. Sure, cav are effective in attacking from behind the people who are busying fighting what is in front of them (again, similar to most times you fight 2 people at once, assuming they have decent movement speed to surround you). Sure, mauls crush through blocks, great for 1v1 situations, but not without drawbacks or counters. But all of these things are pretty balanced and have simple counters that involve a combination of teamwork and skill. The best team will generally still win.

But with the archers, there isn't very reasonable counters. Archers do well with or without teamwork, and their numbers weigh more heavily on the outcome than any other class. The teamwork required to counter archers would require very organized team-wide tactics involving hiding behind cover to force them to move to less advantageous positions, or some incredible shield wall work (which really only had a chance in strat, because the shield barely protects the user without that force-field effect). In fact, just about all the tactical discussions to try to rally a team to victory that I see anymore are attempts to find a way to avoid being slaughtered by the enemy archers. Maybe it's a certain path, maybe it's to camp and wait for them to come to us... It's still all about archers. When I play and see a ton of archers on a team, it generally takes incredible effort for the other team to be able to overcome that and win.




Now, before the latest patch, archers were absolutely unbearable. After the patch, they seem to have improved to borderline unbearable. The main problem with archers I think is still related to their combination of deadliness and accuracy from most anywhere on the battlefield that they can see you. They still gather in places quite far away from the action, being just about as deadly and accurate as they would be if they were closer, and still being very tough to approach without just plain old sneaking up on them. In other words, they are still long range deadly snipers.

I think possibly there should be more tradeoff between damage and accuracy at a distance. Perhaps one bow should be weak, but accurate, useful for those distant, hill-camping, kiting, low-risk archers, so they become more of just a nuisance if they are just firing at whatever the easiest target is (easy-mode archer), but can be very effective if they pick and choose targets where the stun effect will get the target killed or save an ally, or they go for accurate headshots. And then another bow can be strong while being quite inaccurate, so that you'd only be effective at relatively short range (a sort of hard-mode archer). This will make it viable for a shielder to easily neutralize that powerful archer by traveling a short distance, rather than having to trek a long distance across the map to stop them. And the archer will need his melee allies to keep the enemy away, if he wants to keep shooting without stopping.

Alternatively, the damage drop-off over distance can be increased so that long range shots do a lot less damage (and reward being closer by making it more effective), but I think I prefer having the choice between different bows just for variety.

Either way, I think the main problem is the fact that simply having a line of sight is enough for an archer to be so deadly as to be unbalanced, so they can sit practically off the map in no-man's land or on some high rooftop and shoot across the map effectively. There's not much point for them to try to get closer since it'll just make them more vulnerable, which is why archers seem to surround every map, raining down on people from long distances.

[Vexus]

The armour weight increase was unnecessary what was really needed is an increase in the requirements of some weapons and ALL medium+ armour.

It's stupid that most plate pieces have 15 str requirements...

Want tincans to run slower? UP the requirements....

[Vibe]

The armour weight increase was unnecessary what was really needed is an increase in the requirements of some weapons and ALL medium+ armour.

It's stupid that most plate pieces have 15 str requirements...

Want tincans to run slower? UP the requirements....

Problem is that even STR builds are too fast in tincan mode

[Vexus]

Most STR builds are 24/15 or 27/12 (The later is too slow for battle imo) but you are right.

Weapon/armour/shields/whatever should all have stats requirements so that we won't see lightning fast characters in heavy armour while still being highly destructive.

[MrShine]

I made a long reply Kay that I erased by mistake so I'll try to summarize.

Archer (singular) isn't all that effective.
Archers against smaller groups of infantry/cav is quite effective (and IMO the reason people continuously call for nerfs).
Archers shooting at larger sized groups of infantry engaged in combat is fairly effective.
Archers shooting at equally sized groups of infantry/cav actively advancing isn't all that effective.

The advantage of the archer's range is that it is easy to 'team up' on anyone provided you have a clear shot.  The problem is that this means that people will always cry for nerf because they see themselves dying to 'an archer' when in reality it could have been 3 or 4 separate players who gunned him down.  Taken alone an archer is a very fragile class that requires a lot of concentration to be strong. 

I encourage anyone who dislikes the archer class to play a gen as one (skip the fun is easier but doesn't give you the full picture because your 'blooming' stage comes much later when compared to infantry).  I think I'll post some videos of random battle rounds as an archer to maybe give a clearer picture how effective a single archer truly is when I have time.

[Kay of Sauvage]

I made a long reply Kay that I erased by mistake so I'll try to summarize.

Archer (singular) isn't all that effective.
Archers against smaller groups of infantry/cav is quite effective (and IMO the reason people continuously call for nerfs).
Archers shooting at larger sized groups of infantry engaged in combat is fairly effective.
Archers shooting at equally sized groups of infantry/cav actively advancing isn't all that effective.

The advantage of the archer's range is that it is easy to 'team up' on anyone provided you have a clear shot.  The problem is that this means that people will always cry for nerf because they see themselves dying to 'an archer' when in reality it could have been 3 or 4 separate players who gunned him down.  Taken alone an archer is a very fragile class that requires a lot of concentration to be strong. 

I encourage anyone who dislikes the archer class to play a gen as one (skip the fun is easier but doesn't give you the full picture because your 'blooming' stage comes much later when compared to infantry).  I think I'll post some videos of random battle rounds as an archer to maybe give a clearer picture how effective a single archer truly is when I have time.

Sure, a single archer isn't going to determine the outcome of the battle. Even one person abusing the 1st gen zero-upkeep thing to be able to ride around in a plated charger in plate armor won't determine the outcome. Even if it only becomes unbearably game-breaking if a bunch of people do it, that doesn't mean it's not OP on an individual basis as well.

I'm saying each archer is slightly overpowered in their ability to do more than hold their own, regardless of the skill of the archer.

A bad melee infantry is going to be close to useless, let alone being able to break even (give as much damage as they take). And any potential they have to do well is something that can be countered by opposing players being better skilled and smarter. Plus the majority of the people who they manage to hurt or kill are going to be less skilled players who weren't going to be as big of a factor in the outcome anyway.

A bad archer, however, is much more effective. Find a safe place to point and shoot with the rest the archers, and even a bad archer is damaging opponents rather easily to at least break even in terms holding their own, especially if you consider that they are hitting the skilled players just as easily as they hit some useless players. This is why the teams' archer counts dominates the outcome of the battles more than anything. Because every archer is slightly overpowered in ability deal plenty of damage without much effort.


The issue I have is the archer's ability to deal this kind of damage without much thought, risk, or skill. Like I said earlier, I have a problem with the "easy mode" archer. I wouldn't mind archers that are deadly by being close to the battle, but become ineffective from a distance. The reason is because this gives options to counter, either by being able to close down on them a short distance to force them to run/fight, or by getting away from them and putting some distance between you and them so they become much less effective. We should be able to force archers to pursue the battles in order to get into an effective range, not just stand and shoot at any range that they can see us.

But because archers are so accurate and deadly from all but pretty extreme ranges, they're hanging out away from or above the battle in any place that has a view, and there's very little people can do about it. Force them to choose between a much weaker bow with good accuracy, or a strong bow with less accuracy, and it'll reduce the effectiveness of the "easy mode" archer, while still allowing smart, aware, good archers to be very effective (and to be counter-able).

[Keshian]

anyhow.. is it right that archers should do more damage than a mw melee weapon? (40c mw katana 6ps)

They dont.  You are forgetting the longer the distance of the shot the more archer has his damage reduced so youa r elooking at maximum point-blank damage.  WHile athletics (moving faster toward someone), wpf speed swing bonus, holding attack bonus, much easier to get head hits (especailly 1-handers) to get higher damage - all increase the damage multiplier.