Oh my!

[Kafein]

Every class shouldn't be able to 1v1 every other class.   An archer should be weak in melee vs infantry and cavalry, but strong when at a distance.  Cav should be strong against archers and short wielding melee weapons, they should be weak if a group of archers is lining up on them, and they should be weak vs pikemen.  2h's should have the advantage over a support class like sword/board or hoplites, but they should be weak to archers and cavalry. 

But instead everyone thinks that the fix to "balance" means that every class should be able to have an equal chance in a 1v1 versus every other class.  It really is a retarded progression.

Hey, that's not my point. The problem with ladders isn't that archers are strong at a distance. It's that they are too strong in "melee". For many reasons. Ladders only add to this. First, bows are shotguns that do incredible damage at close ranges. Second, due to engine limitations, turning your aim around doesn't decrease your accuracy, even though it should (probably to the point you would have to draw your bow again, for archers). Third, ranged allows for more movement speed and acceleration, allowing ranged to run from melee and to dodge cavalry easily. This also increases their duel abilities (mace + 15/24 = quite easy to take down a single melee opponent, if you use your agility). And fourth, the ladders that make them virtually immune to melee (if done right), and completely to cav.

That's it. The three first points make ranged an already quite hard class to counter (with non-ranged or throwing). What works is outnumbering, anything else has strong chances of failing. Every contender for the title of ranged counter has a big flaw. Shielders only survive ranged. But when it comes to killing them, they are too slow. Furthermore, shield coverage is fail, protecting only from what the shielder faces. Cav are squishy and very easy to dodge. Shieldless throwers lack protection, shielded throwers are too slow, and throwing is unreliable (low accuracy, slow missiles, difficult arcs). What works is trying to kill the enemy infantry fast and hoping you'll have enough meatshield left when you have to reach the ranged, the classes of your meatshield doesn't really matter.

So actually, the problem isn't that all other classes should be able to match 1v1 with archers, it's that the counters to ranged are too weak, and a lot weaker because of ladders.

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

The goggles they do nothing!

[CrazyCracka420]

Yes, they absolutely should. A good player of any class should never, ever die in a 1v1 confrontation because of some rock paper scissors nonsense. A 1v1 confrontation should be decided solely by skill.

Sorry I'm not very good at articulating my thoughts.  I don't mean their death should be a foregone conclusion, I mean that in every 1v1, it shouldn't be "equally matched".  Certain classes have strengths over other classes, and to try and nerf those natural strengths to give the other class a chance in a 1v1, seems like a losing proposition.

[Oberyn]

Ok, so basically you want ranged to be the only class immune to every other class except itself, yes? An archer's natural strengths are pretty explicit: you can hurt people from far away, you are usually lighter/faster mobility than well equipped inf. That already makes you dangerous to every single other player on the enemy team. Sitting on top of what is basically a small, unreachable indestructible fort isn't a natural advantage, it's an artificial one, one that completely unbalances the Battle gamemode. In Siege it's a natural advantage, because that's the whole fucking point of the gamemode, one side defends a castle and the other attacks, and that's balanced out by the respawn times.

[Engine]

I'm in favor of this change, if it means less fun-destroying archers on rooftops, invulnerable for 5:30 each round until an admin tells them to jump down.

I also have an archer, and only fight from the ground. Like a bad mutha.

[CrazyCracka420]

Ok, so basically you want ranged to be the only class immune to every other class except itself, yes? An archer's natural strengths are pretty explicit: you can hurt people from far away, you are usually lighter/faster mobility than well equipped inf. That already makes you dangerous to every single other player on the enemy team. Sitting on top of what is basically a small, unreachable indestructible fort isn't a natural advantage, it's an artificial one, one that completely unbalances the Battle gamemode. In Siege it's a natural advantage, because that's the whole fucking point of the gamemode, one side defends a castle and the other attacks, and that's balanced out by the respawn times.

No the complaints about ladders are legitimate, I'm just using this as an argument of the bigger picture of nerfing classes as the "fix" to balance issues, instead of countering the natural balances.

Archers are weak to shields who can push them back and render the enemy ranged useless to their team by making them turn and run.  Also cavalry are the natural counter to lone archers (as well as it usually boiling down to archers having to be anti-archers, like modern day sniper and anti-snipers).  The same can be true for cavalry when they are on the move and far away from the battle, the only people who can counter them are other cavalry. 

That being said, I kill archers all the time when I get dismounted from my horse and have to run them down.  You can corner them with other infantry, or I can just chase them away from the battle and keep them from shooting my teammates.  Ranged aren't overpowered, maybe you can argue they were with ladders and being on rooftops, but now that is being removed, I don't think saying ranged is immune to every other class is truthful. 

[Oberyn]

Well yeh, removing ladders and the roofcamping thing was kind of the whole point of the nerf, so I don't see why they'd need anything more.

[Joker86]

I also want to point out that I agree that further nerfs, both to archers and cavalry, are not needed.

Now that roofcamping is (will soon be? Are server patched already?) gone, we can see how the ranged spam develops. If there's still too much of it, I suggested to give bonus XP at the end of the round, depending on how rare your class is. If there are too many players of the same class, you simply get less rewards. This could perhaps encourage a few people per server to switch to a class that's more seldom at the moment, and switching back to archer when enough other players did the same. It's a nerf without lowering the effictivity of archers.

The only solution to buffing infantry I found was a new skill system, which a bit nerfs the other classes, too, unfortunately. Basically only the website gets changed, the skills stay the same. Everyone has still access to the old, generic skill tree with STR and AGi as attributes, but for every skill point raised you need FOUR points of the corresponding attribute. But you can unlock ONE of three "skill trees" (which function the same way like strength does, according to most item difficulties), where skills need only 3x as many attribute points. The problem is, not every skill tree contains all skills.  Archers for example don't have athletics or power strike in their skill tree, and every point in the "archery" skill tree counts only as half point of strength ingame. Infantry has no ranged skills, cavalry has no ironflesh or athletics. And in order to buff infantry a bit, a few basic skills like ironflesh, power strike and shield skill need only TWICE the attribute to be raised one point.

If you want to raise a skill that's not in your tree, you have to pay with 4 attribute points per skill point.

This way infantry will always be the fastest, toughest and hardest hitting class in melee, and you should be able to feel this. Cavalry can also hit quite hard, but is more vulnerable, and archers can basically only shoot 

Of course this nerfs hybrids the most, but I think this can be balanced carefully, finding a fair solution to make them as strong as they used to be (which was not much anyway, admittedly  )