I'm not playing anymore so I can't say for sure, but the ones that have complained have been a mixture of polearmers, other cav players and a few 2handers. What's common for all these players is their veterancy, I doubt they lack awareness.
So that statement was a bit unfair and only shows how negative an attitude you have toward the class. I'm just saying, that you could have given that sentence more thought. It's exactly those type of comments that start flame wars or at least a brief insulting between people of different opinions. That's not what this thread needs, what it needs is sensible debates about balance so that the developers can feel out the general consensus and act on it. Usually, the general consensus is pretty spot on - especially when multiple people try their best to be as objective as possible.
Yes, Bjord, unfortunately I must say you are correct.
So I'll try and argue a bit better for my case...
First of is statistics. These can't stand alone, but they do hint at some interestesting facts, Fasader cared to share them earlier on:
a) Less than 30% of the kills of EU1 is made from ranged.
b) This means either that it is a support class or that it is underpowered compared to 2h and polearm who has far more kills.
Second off is my own experience as an archer (1st time archer that is, I have 10 gens of both 2h, shielder, cav what not):
I make more kills with my mace than with my bow.
Then there are my observations that most often the top scores of EU 1 is either cav or a skilled 2h/polearm.
Which leads me to conclude that:
- Veterans like to duel. They want the battle server to be a large duel server. This is not
my way of having fun. Warband is a medieval combat simulator or as close can be while still having fun. This include friendly archers and pesky cav.
- Veterans like to pawn noobs who don't have 5 years of duelling experience, forcing them to ranged classes to have an effect causing veterans to rage cause a noob killed them with no skill omfg l2p.
However:
Just because I ahve fun meleeing in a ranged heavy environment does not mean others should be forced to have fun in such a way. This alone should make it necessary to find a way to incentive players to have a melee character. I can completely agree that it would be best if no more than 15-20% of a team would be ranged or cav or heavy armed, hence that is the restrictions I use for my tournaments. But if you nerf archers you only nerf the players, not the reason for why these class have been chosen.
- The suggested change for ranged that causes +headshot - bodyshots, will have a wrong effect. It will cause more light random spam with fast ranged, causing more rage because the 2h veterans get hit more often, annoying them to no end, where the better focused archers will play a melee class because they already make more kills in melee any way.
- Nerfing archer any more is in no way "fair". It's sort of like saying: "because it is easy to play, you should of no use".
- Where is the rage at 10 plated horsemen owning a server for 10 rounds?
In truth the fix isntead should be a buffing infantry formation fighting. This would also help strat, cause less mains to be archers.
( and the reason archers are powerful in strat is their cost to kill ratio combined with the need not to commit hence lose tickets and equipment, and cannot be compared to the situation on the battle server such as EU1).
Poll