Please stop trying to "fix" the combat

[ArchonAlarion]

Every time you add a game feature, the balance will be changed. it's either more features or a stagnant balance. Old players need to stop confusing their previous expectations with the direction the mod should go. It's like childhood music with these people, whatever they heard in their teenage years is "great" everything after sucks.

[Vodner]

At the moment, melee is so slow that it is trivially easy to block a single player indefinitely, no matter what weapon they are using (this was an issue before the right-swing nerf too). This pretty much turns melee fights into a test to see who gets bored first.

I would have hoped that the developers would have been focused on making player skill more important, rather than less.

[Osiris]

well there are many classes that have been heavily nerfed before. The game isnt 2h vs everyone else.

2h got a tiny nerf compared to what throwers took and you think losing a little speed was harder to take then lancers losing most of their range. and yes lancers still pwn but so do 2h. Your class hasnt suddenly been nerfed to the ground..

[Vodner]

well there are many classes that have been heavily nerfed before. The game isnt 2h vs everyone else.

2h got a tiny nerf compared to what throwers took and you think losing a little speed was harder to take then lancers losing most of their range. and yes lancers still pwn but so do 2h. Your class hasnt suddenly been nerfed to the ground..

I'm not a 2h. I play every weapon class. My problem is that every single weapon class is easy to block at the moment - even 101 speed one-handers. Reducing the right swing speed just made this even worse.

Every fight should be exciting. You should be on the edge of your seat, constantly a split second away from certain death. At the moment, it's far more dull than that.

[Phew]

Slower combat just increases the importance of teamplay.

Here's a pro tip: Attack people that are fighting someone else. You will probably kill them.

There might be a valid argument for increasing combat speed on the duel servers, and the devs might be receptive to that. You are just looking for a venue to show off your l33t swordplay, right?

[Vodner]

Slower combat just increases the importance of teamplay.

Teamplay remains important irrespective of whether or not individual combat is slow. Reducing combat to backstabbing is neither fun nor particularly interesting.

[Xant]

Reducing combat to backstabbing is neither fun nor particularly interesting.

This. It's not there yet, but that's basically what Phew is saying is ideal (apparently?). Making it a numbers game, all about backstabbing, would be the most boring thing ever.

[Huey Newton]

Dear Devs,

                  Please continue nerfing cav. Cav is only getting easier for players such as myself and it is only becoming more and more of a problem.

           

Teamkills and Homosexuality

Cavalieres_Huey_Newton

[BADPLAYERold]

Dear Devs,

                  Please continue nerfing cav. Cav is only getting easier for players such as myself and it is only becoming more and more of a problem.

           

Teamkills and Homosexuality

Cavalieres_Huey_Newton

this but unironically

[Phew]

This. It's not there yet, but that's basically what Phew is saying is ideal (apparently?). Making it a numbers game, all about backstabbing, would be the most boring thing ever.

The most effective combat tactic since the beginning of warfare has been flanking (which is what you refer to as backstabbing, I believe). M&B is meant to roughly capture the essence of medieval combat, where most battles were probably decided by whichever side had numbers and/or the most effective flanking maneuvers, not who had the one guy with the best fencing skills.

[dynamike]

(click to show/hide)

I'm saying it's cool that they have implemented some features to the game that otherwise wouldn't be there.  These obviously cause classes to be stronger and weaker, but not a direct nerf or buff. I'm okay with those changes.  I don't think they should be tweaking item stats, and trying to actively balance classes (forcing people to change their builds, and making their equipment they've loomed obsolete compared to other items and equipment). 

An example that I know of that recently fucked over a lot of people was changing the difficulty of horses.  Coursers went from 4 to 6, and my bro (TommyHu) who has retired 6 or 7 times was never going to retire again, and he was riding his +3 courser with 4 riding.  When it went up to 6 difficulty, this long time player who never was going to retire again, was forced to retire or respec just to use the equipment he's been building up for, for months and months (more likely years).  And ended up just saying fuck c-rpg for about 3 months.

That's just one example, I don't think the balance needs to be constantly tweaked.  I think the classes all have strengths and weaknesses, and people need to exploit them, and use tactics to counter them (not rely on the dev's to nerf something). 

I don't like how they nerf something (like say making arrows go from pierce to cut) and then they scratch their head when everyone's running around in tin cans.  Or they nerf pikes/long spears from 2 to 3 slots, and then they scratch their head when there's now way more horses on the servers.  And then to fix the tin cans, they nerf plated armor.  And to fix the cav issue they'll probably think nerfing cav is the solution.  Nerfs on top of nerfs seem to be the way c-rpg has been headed for a long time, and I think it's a bad idea.

I generally think that's a good idea.  But they really should have a handful of their most trusted, respected, and "smart" players, on some sort of "steering" committee to brain storm pro's and con's before they make real big "balance" changes.  Basically a cross-section of players, dev's, admins, etc who can give their input (and the dev's and chadz specifically can take it or leave it).

Maybe where you are wrong is: there is no big red button labeled "BALANCE" and when you push it the game is all of a sudden balanced.

Balance requires changing little things, one or a few at a time. When the effects are as desired, move on to the next changes. When the aftermath is lacking (e.g. a change is abuse able or imbalances something else), the change needs to be reverted or something else changed accordingly.

This all takes time an effort and I say:

Draw your verdict of the game when everything is set and done and the dev team releases the mod. Everything before that is just irrelevant.

[Vodner]

The most effective combat tactic since the beginning of warfare has been flanking (which is what you refer to as backstabbing, I believe). M&B is meant to roughly capture the essence of medieval combat, where most battles were probably decided by whichever side had the most effective flanking maneuvers, not who had the one guy with the best fencing skills.

Sorry, but reducing things to the point where player skill has little impact on victory makes for a terrible game. If you minimize the effect of individual skill, there is literally no reason to play the game - you may as well just have every battle autoresolve based on class composition.

[CrazyCracka420]

(click to show/hide)

Maybe where you are wrong is: there is no big red button labeled "BALANCE" and when you push it the game is all of a sudden balanced.

Balance requires changing little things, one or a few at a time. When the effects are as desired, move on to the next changes. When the aftermath is lacking (e.g. a change is abuse able or imbalances something else), the change needs to be reverted or something else changed accordingly.

This all takes time an effort and I say:

Draw your verdict of the game when everything is set and done and the dev team releases the mod. Everything before that is just irrelevant.

It's been around for what, 2 years now?  I don't think they will ever achieve a perfect balance.  I'm just against nerfs in general, I don't see anything as being so unbalanced it breaks the game.  Continual tweaking of item stats and difficulties (not to mention direct class changes) mean that at the beginning of your current generation char you are basing your build on one set of game settings, and then at the end it could be completely different. 

I say let people get used to the settings, and if you deem a balance issue to be very necessary in fixing, then tread lightly.  If the change you implement daisy chains a bunch of other issues, revert the change and come up with a better solution.  Daisy chaining a nerf to fix a balance issue a previous nerf caused is a downhill slope that never ends.

[Phew]

Sorry, but reducing things to the point where player skill has little impact on victory makes for a terrible game. If you minimize the effect of individual skill, there is literally no reason to play the game - you may as well just have every battle autoresolve based on class composition.

Tactical aptitude is a 'skill' just like twitch reflexes. Up combat speed, and you over-emphasize the twitch reflex skill while under-emphasizing good tactics. I think the current combat speed strikes a good balance between the two. Up the combat speed, and whichever team lucks into getting the one guy with Jedi-like reflexes is nearly assured victory. The slow combat speed puts a cap on how much impact those Jedi can have on the overall battle, allowing a team with superior tactics but inferior reflexes to have a chance.

Increased combat speed could result in every battle being "autoresolved" just based on whichever team has the best ping values. Do you want that?

[Dezilagel]

Maybe us duelists want our skills to count in battle too?

Yes, I am aware of the ping problem, and it's a legitimate one, but I'm sitting on ~65-70 ping and I can handle the current speed with ease.

We already got stat/number dependent classes (ranged and cav), can't we keep melee more about duel skill? There are tons of options if you want to teamplay; pikeman, cav, twatcher, x-bow, crushthrough who can all kill "jedi" players without getting touched themselves.

These are all classes that tremendously reduce duel skill impact, but when regular melee becomes just a teamplay element as well... Well, where are the options? Warband has the most awesome melee combat system ever developed imho, let us develop and use it!

Let close combat regular melee be for the *duelists* (there are awesome melee players who almost don't duel at all), for those who want to develop and get really good at it.