The decrease of diversity of units on the battlefield.

[Harpag]

The assumption is that on the battlefield should be present all the basic types of units and their hybrids. The search for the proper balance of the game cause changes in the proportion of amount of each class. This is natural. To see the actual impact of changes in balance, you have to wait a bit, because people need time to observe and adjust.

I fear that the latest balance is bad, because I noticed a sharp decline in the number of certain classes. I think this spoils teamwork.
Practically you can't see throwing units and mounted archers. Additionally, you can't see a dedicated crossbowmen, and the number of archers has decreased to a minimum level.

Time for the observation of chaotic clashes 2h + lance in your back while you can't see. These two classes have any natural enemies now, they don't have to be afraid, don't have to invest points in the shields or hold formation. What for? 2h/pole spam + lance in the ass solves all problems.

Rather than reduce the diversity, it is better to increase it. Add new units, such as camels or elephants. Relax - at the cost of upkeep one elephant should work half the clan. Look at this: http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,23133.0.html  This is a joke, but it shows the desire of people for diversify.

This is what I write here isn't complaining and crying. I'm not focused on the K:D ratio. I just see that battles are less interesting than before. It does not matter what the map. It is always the same - charge and end the battle after 2 minutes.

Is that what we all want? If you think otherwise - just give arguments and keep emotions for yourself.

[bonekuukkeli]

Blame melee. They whine loudest about anything they can't kill easily. And are unwilling to learn way around problems.

And yes. Diversity is good, but let's keep elephants away from this game

[Gurnisson]

Throwing, 2-slot crossbows and horse archers didn't deserve a nerf at all. Only the foot archers and maybe the 1-slot crossbows deserved the nerf, but it was a tad too harsh. 25 % reduction would've been enough for them, probably, or some serious increase of bow weight or arrows instead of damage nerf.

[Overdriven]

Playing just now I did notice a DRAMATIC decrease in overall ranged and a dramatic increase in cav. Cav actually outnumbered ranged players by quite a long way. And this with 100 people on EU1 and only 1 cav friendly map in the 7 I played.

Wooo go melee whining you just completely broke balance. Time to nerf cav rather than just reverting the change 

I'm going to stick to Rageball for a while.

[polkafranzi]

Apart from roofcamping, and just before the silly right swing delay patch, wasn't everything just fine?  Or did I miss some epic whine about something or other?  nerfrpg, sigh

[dodnet]

Cav usage has constantly increased during the last weeks. I am a cav/lancer build but I'm playing mostly on foot since the last gen as I love killing cav and Im not so good on horse

There arent many throwers and xbowers around anymore. Diversity is good! Nerf the nerf!

[Grumbs]

On EU1 I see a lot of horse archers/crossbowmen, and often they are the last people alive in the round. Don't just think of the damage, think of their utility and sustained firepower..They can choose any target at all and reduce their HP and can move around and switch targets whenever they like. Hitting targets from long range on a horse should come at a price like it does now. They shouldn't be mobile snipers, but tactical mobile units that soften up a target of their choice to make it easier for their team. If you spot someone like Chase and can put him at half HP after several shots then that is a huge bonus for your team in the long term

Its similar for non mounted ranged, you need to choose your targets and soften them up, not think you can snipe like its TF2 or some crappy FPS

Its not like ranged were key to taking out horses before either, remeber the amount of times you had tens of archers and they all just wanted to shoot randomly into melee fights. Now its more down to melee to deal with cav which is fine

[Overdriven]

It took me 9 arrow hits to kill oldknight in his heraldic mail with tabard. Sure on an open map I can shoot him off his horse and circle him till kingdom come. But the likelihood is that a team mate will come to help, or several. It also took me 18 arrow hits to kill 2 guys in red tunic over mail. One of them I headshotted in a great helm. Fact is that switching targets isn't all that helpful because the damage output is low. They aren't mobile snipers. They should either have decent damage, but poor accuracy, or good accuracy but lower damage. Right now they have neither and are pretty crap with both.

When cav get an HA on their tail and you shoot arrow after arrow into their body (not horses) and they don't bother to swerve, change direction and get away, you know there's a problem.

Ranged have always been key in taking down horses. When it took 3-4 arrows from a hornbow to down a courser, they were very important as even one arrow had a good effect. Now there's no point in aiming for horses especially with the very buggy head hitboxes. Even worse for HA who used to concentrate on cav but now should just hunt very light inf instead.

[dodnet]

HAs are a special kind, they are annoying as hell. It's almost impossible to catch them when on foot and also on horse. They shouldn't deal much damage. (I dont say there shouldnt be a change!)

[Grumbs]

I wouldn't mind seeing horses getting lower overall HP and armour, if there really is a problem. I don't think there is btw, I think this is all a way for ranged to whine about the balance changes, to make out theres a problem with cav now. Reduce horse HP/armour or do some other tweaks like reduce shield forcefield, but don't buff snipers.

[Overdriven]

I'm part of GK...do you think it would be in my best interests to nerf cav?  I want ranged fixed...not cav nerfed.

But judging by my 2 hours of playing EU1 today. There is a problem. Incredible lack of ranged, huge increase in cav.

Nerfing cav is not the way to go. As once again you'd just get a circle jerk of nerfs.

The solution is either reverting the changes entirely, changing it to something else, or reducing the nerf.

[Grumbs]

Leave time for it to balance out. Good ranged players will fill the shoes of people who just wanted to sit on a roof and shoot. Its not worth rushing into changes while people are still adapting and people are changing classes. Cav might even become FOTM, but I don't think its an issue at all atm, its just a way to whine about ranged changes

[Overdriven]

But that's the point. What you just said there completely makes the patch an act of hypocrisy.

The patch brought in 2 major nerfs to ranged at once:

- Ladder removal
- Damage nerf

You can't bring in 2 major nerfs and expect to see decent results. Instead the removal of ladders should have been brought in, then the situation reassessed as people would have had to adapt and learn. But by bringing in 2 major nerfs at once, you can't see the effects each nerf had and you can't see how people adapt to each one. It's rushing changes that caused this problem.

The fact is people are obviously 'adapting' by flocking away from ranged builds. Otherwise there would be more ranged on the servers now 'adapting' to the change.

[Grumbs]

You dont need to do that with everything you balance. Ranged needed to get off roofs and their damage was stupid for the effort required, roof or no roof. I wouldn't mind seeing some accuracy increase if thats necessary, but you still do decent damage for what you actually have to do, considering what you have to do for any other class. Being encouraged to aim for the head makes it a bit more in line with other classes, but its still very 1 sided skill wise.

The idea is that ranged have to work for their kills and damage, especially if you're on a freaking horse. Maybe they should slow all the projectiles down so you have to judge distance more, that with higher accuracy might be good

[Overdriven]

You dont need to do that with everything you balance. Ranged needed to get off roofs and their damage was stupid for the effort required, roof or no roof. I wouldn't mind seeing some accuracy increase if thats necessary, but you still do decent damage for what you actually have to do, considering what you have to do for any other class. Being encouraged to aim for the head makes it a bit more in line with other classes, but its still very 1 sided skill wise.

The idea is that ranged have to work for their kills and damage, especially if you're on a freaking horse. Maybe they should slow all the projectiles down so you have to judge distance more, that with higher accuracy might be good

Yes you do. Getting them off roofs allows them to be very very vulnerable to both melee and cav. Whereas when they were on roofs they were practically immune. Such a big change needs to be observed for a time. I doubt a damage nerf would have been needed as archers would have died faster, reducing their overall damage output.

Projectiles already got slowed down. Slowing them down even more would make anything over short-medium range near impossible. Although I think slowing projectiles also increases damage? Have you tried HA? As in high speed HA? Good luck hitting anything and surviving. Then come back and say they don't have to work for kills 

Anyway just as an example my scores today were:
2-5
4-6
5-5
7-7
6-5
2-3 (I lagged and disconnected)
1-2 (ping started going above 200 so quit).

The 7-7 score was on a very open desert map where HA is in it's element, though I was on the losing team. The number of lancers and the inability to down them made it very difficult. The kills I did get were due to persistence and following people plus finding those two guys in red tunics over mail + great helms and circling them using 18 arrows out of 20 (only missed twice) to kill them. 18 arrows to kill two people is a hellish amount.

Also, my courser bumping does more damaged than my arrows. Yay.