archery..

[Arrowblood]

+1

[Moncho]

+1 Tears, and i am an archer atm and sometimes top the scoreboards, though only when i drop my bow and use my heavy bastard sword with 50 wpf!

[Pappus]

This whole thread is just pointless anyways.

You always have people yelling to nerf archery, it always gets nerfed in major patches (besides the headshot buff, which was entirely not needed and rarely noticeable by the majority of players anyways only the armoured HP stackers), people yell that it was not enough, and the cycle continues... Regardless of anyone's opinions.

Also I am suspecting that the majority of the people here never played any archery in recent times. It is frustrating as all hell.

Archers rarely dominate scoreboards.

They don't need nerfs, they don't need buffs, they just need to be left alone ffs (imo) before someone (like cmp) fucks everything up again.

But yes, do go on discussing this bloated topic and thread like anyone who can change things actually gives a damn, wait patiently, and await another small tweak to archery/nerf while blithering on about a class you have never played.

Tears, the scoreboard doesn't hold a lot of information. Just finishing blows on you or by you. You can't take that as basis to gauge the effectiveness of a class as such.

I don't want to gimp archers, I would love to see them a hell of a lot more dmg on ranged hard shots, but when someone is close they need to drop. You say it yourself, archering is currently frustrating even if you do it and that is a good telling that it needs a rebalance.

If you gimp their kiting capabilities and give good counters to them you can justify to increase their dmg on the more skill demanding shots, or more accuracy. I think that it would be a better tradeoff.

For you it might be frustrating, but those 2h guys, cav etc are certainly frustrated aswell if their courser/rouncey/arabian gets oneshoted or if a HA is doing his kite thing and it takes like 5 opposing cavs to take him down. I want to eliminate that frustration and change it to a more enjoyable situation for everyone.

But balancing needs a step at a time and I think we all see a lot of rangekiting going way over the top.

[Teeth]

Archers rarely dominate scoreboards.

Kills are not representative for skill with archery. Because your target is not within an arm length of you as it is when you're melee, they can get out of your way much more easily. Still you deal a lot of damage across the entire team, not only against a handful of targets like melee.

They don't need nerfs, they don't need buffs, they just need to be left alone ffs (imo) before someone (like cmp) fucks everything up again.

They need a fundamental change in their mechanics. Allow me to repeat myself.

Probably said this in here already, but I'll repeat myself. Changes that have been made to archery made the archer with melee capabilities almost extinct. Furthermore, if you would for example give archers a less steep wpf curve, no one would put the extra wpf into melee, they'd rather put some more into archery. Why is that? Because they can run away. An archer with melee capabilities is completely possible and viable, but they all want that 2 slot bow, those 2 stacks of arrows and as much accuracy as they can get.

I would much rather see archers as most of them were historically. Wearing quite a bit of armor and armed with a melee weapon. They fire volleys into the enemy ranks, but if they get catched in the fray, they are able to defend themselves.

Running away as an archer should be made less viable. They tend to have quite a bit of agi and barely any armor so they can outrun pretty much all infantry.

A good start to fix this would be to disable archers with their bows in hand to reach sprint speed. After 2-3 seconds of running your character suddenly speeds up to his maximum speed. If archers can't do that anymore, running away while being chased is not an option, while still being able to sidestep after every shot. They can switch weapon and sprint, but no more run/turn/shoot shenanigans.

Also prevent archers from taking 2 stacks of arrows, so they always have room for a proper melee weapon.

To compensate for the loss of mobility, the wpf decrease for wearing armor should be reduced a lot. Armor just does not decrease archery capabilities much. Arrow stack size should be increased and break chance should be reduced. Splitting proficencies for archers should be encouraged and be made more viable. Give them considerably more melee capabilities, without nerfing their current range capabilities much. Enable battle archers, no actually, force archers to be battle archers. As long as the possibility is there to get more accuracy and damage by being a wpf whoring cowardly archer, most will do it.

The archer in peasant garbs, that runs away when anyone comes close, should be changed into an uneffective gimmick build, that trembles in fear of his mighty armored and brave battle archer brethren.

These are proper archers

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visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Oh, implement deployable stakes, doesn't matter if they don't damage horses if they run into them, stopping them is good enough.

tl;dr version:
Nerf running away capabilities to the ground, force melee capabilities on archers while leaving their ranged capabilities mostly untouched.

[Pappus]

They need a fundamental change in their mechanics. Allow me to repeat myself.

Disabling sprint or reducing their running speed are both valid option, although I like your idea more, but it doesn't help against the crap HA's do against pursuers, that is why I took option nr. 2. It might be less severe for HA's, but it is still garbage as it is.

[MrShine]

Pappus if you're trying to troll you're doing it wrong, with those humongous walls of text/effort.

If you aren't trolling, might I suggest you give the game more than a week before thinking you know what you're talking about.
 

[Pappus]

Pappus if you're trying to troll you're doing it wrong, with those humongous walls of text/effort.

If you aren't trolling, might I suggest you give the game more than a week before thinking you know what you're talking about.

Might I suggest you give your reading abilities another go, especially if people give you a clear hint. I am about 2 mil xp away from gen 3, which you should know takes more then a week of playing.

You register in the forum when you chose to. It doesn't mean I started playing then.

And even if I would only be playing for a week that does not invalidate my argument. You are like one of the guys telling young adults, that their argument is invalid due to their age.

[MrShine]

You ask me to work on my reading abilities when this thread has rehashed your idea probably 10 times?

And your argument most certainly is invalidated if you don't know how the mechanics of the game work.  If I log in as a peasant and get bump killed by a horse in 2 hits, then come crying on the forums about how OP horses are, that's a pretty poor argument to make, isn't it?

Forgive me for assuming you've played for only a week, but a suggestion as absurd as the one you presented tells me that you are someone who has not played an archer before, and certainly hasn't given the game enough rounds to see how archers really aren't that much of a problem.  If archers were so overpowered and always able to kite everyone to death wouldn't archers constantly clutch the end of rounds and dominate the scoreboard?

It happens sometimes, but individual archers are very rarely the end of round heroes.

[Teeth]

wouldn't archers constantly clutch the end of rounds and dominate the scoreboard?

They do clutch the end of the rounds constantly and

Kills are not representative for skill with archery. Because your target is not within an arm length of you as it is when you're melee, they can get out of your way much more easily. Still you deal a lot of damage across the entire team, not only against a handful of targets like melee.

[MrShine]

They do clutch the end of the rounds constantly and

Pics or it never happened.  They do sometimes of course, but nowhere near the amount of times the hero ends up being a melee player.

Also:

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Quote from: SgtTeeh on February 17, 2012, 13:37:49

    Kills are not representative for skill with archery. Because your target is not within an arm length of you as it is when you're melee, they can get out of your way much more easily. Still you deal a lot of damage across the entire team, not only against a handful of targets like melee.

    On my archer alt I have gotten oneshot and twoshot by archers so far. As a melee I can mostly take 3-5 archery bodyshots with 60 body armour and 64 hp. I have gotten 80% of my hp shot away by a single bodyshot. Archery is very powerful at times.

    Not to mention the amount of times it fucks you over in melee when you have your upblock readied for an enemy great long axe, but then just get shot before it hits you.


My response from February: Yes an 'unseen' strength of archery (or ranged in general) is their ability to deal damage to multiple targets that is not recognized in the scoreboards.

However something that never seems to be said yet is still very important in practice is this damage doesn't always matter.  In battle someone with 1% hp is just as dangerous as someone with 100% hp, there is no benefit from weakening people other than making them easier to kill later.  If you wound 5 different people but those 5 people end up surviving and your team loses, you effectively made very little difference to the round even if you ended up doing enough 'total' damage to kill one or two people.

It's also important to note that if you hit someone and they go on to get couched by some cav dude later in the round, you again effectively did nothing to contribute, because that person would have died to the couch with or without the arrow in their chest.

Melee is susceptible to this scenario as well, but not nearly as often because typically when someone is in a melee battle someone is going to emerge the victor having killed the other.

Just something to take into account.

[Pappus]

You ask me to work on my reading abilities when this thread has rehashed your idea probably 10 times?

And your argument most certainly is invalidated if you don't know how the mechanics of the game work.  If I log in as a peasant and get bump killed by a horse in 2 hits, then come crying on the forums about how OP horses are, that's a pretty poor argument to make, isn't it?

Forgive me for assuming you've played for only a week, but a suggestion as absurd as the one you presented tells me that you are someone who has not played an archer before, and certainly hasn't given the game enough rounds to see how archers really aren't that much of a problem.  If archers were so overpowered and always able to kite everyone to death wouldn't archers constantly clutch the end of rounds and dominate the scoreboard?

It happens sometimes, but individual archers are very rarely the end of round heroes.

Your argument is not validated by exagerating it. Peasant time holds a whopping 10-12 rounds.

If you go into spectator mode and check how most archers die it is by being distracted or not aware of an immediate danger. If they are aware they rarely die and they kite others to death.

Very skilled archers even kill shielders by drawing, turning, and move past the shield in a quick move, but that is rather uncommon. Most of the time if a shielder is after them they will kite them and attack other targets.

You cannot possibly think, that the kiting garbage that is going on is enhancing the gaming experience or balance.

I for one would like to see them way more vulnerable to close infantry and cavalry in general, leading to a need for them to be protected and at the same time (some tweaks later) see the need for 2h guys to be shielded by teammates instead of rushing straight in.

Oneshotting any unarmored horse charging them? How does that enrich the balance and gaming experience? How can you justify that it happens? Is it a hard shot? Mostly oneshotting good armored cav close to impact?

I have around 60ish HP and have light kuyak + gauntlets and I get oneshotted to the chest? Obviously not always but often enough that if I see an archer being aware of me I will turn and ride away ASAP. So even if I would switch to those armored horses I am still in grave danger of dieing to a single arrow without the need of a headshot.

Grave enough of a threat, that I run away like a mad men when an archer is even looking in my general direction.

I have 8 riding and when there are a couple of HA's in the enemy team I usually try to get them on their arabian horses you know what happens? 9 out of 10 I end up dead without a chance of striking him down.

We ride in the same direction and I am faster, obviously I try to stay right side behind him so he cant shoot, which lasts about half a second until he just turns a bit to give me a shot. The damage to my horse or myself is considerable more then I do to him by scraping his horse, which is all I can realistically do every 30ish seconds. My horse or I am long dead before that happens.

Now you might say, why do you go after the HA if you cannot beat him? What do you think happens if the HA decides to go after me? He would be behind me and there is no way in hell to do anything about it but pray that he oversees another player charging him or run back into the thick of my teamates. The only difference is, that if he chases me he needs more arrows for my horse while I can do 0 about it. If I chase him the positive speed multiplier goes for his arrows and they pack a huge punch to horses. It is even worse if they do a quick turn into stop to shoot me because then he only needs one or two arrows to drop my horse.

I mean why don't you make an STF character get on a horse and try to take down Corsair. Or some other notorious archers/HA's. Just go after them and then express your feelings about it.

Even if the buff hits I won't be a cavalry by then anymore and I don't mind terribly much I just do what most cavalry players do now, couche early dehorse someone, play a bit with your new prey. Then go into the battleline and search for unaware targets unprotected by spears of any kind.

It all boils down to: Archer beats crossbowmen, 2h and cavalry, unshielded thrower.

[MrShine]

Your argument is not validated by exagerating it. Peasant time holds a whopping 10-12 rounds.

If you go into spectator mode and check how most archers die it is by being distracted or not aware of an immediate danger. If they are aware they rarely die and they kite others to death.

Very skilled archers even kill shielders by drawing, turning, and move past the shield in a quick move, but that is rather uncommon. Most of the time if a shielder is after them they will kite them and attack other targets.

You cannot possibly think, that the kiting garbage that is going on is enhancing the gaming experience or balance.

I for one would like to see them way more vulnerable to close infantry and cavalry in general, leading to a need for them to be protected and at the same time (some tweaks later) see the need for 2h guys to be shielded by teammates instead of rushing straight in.

Oneshotting any unarmored horse charging them? How does that enrich the balance and gaming experience? How can you justify that it happens? Is it a hard shot? Mostly oneshotting good armored cav close to impact?

I have around 60ish HP and have light kuyak + gauntlets and I get oneshotted to the chest? Obviously not always but often enough that if I see an archer being aware of me I will turn and ride away ASAP. So even if I would switch to those armored horses I am still in grave danger of dieing to a single arrow without the need of a headshot.

Grave enough of a threat, that I run away like a mad men when an archer is even looking in my general direction.

I have 8 riding and when there are a couple of HA's in the enemy team I usually try to get them on their arabian horses you know what happens? 9 out of 10 I end up dead without a chance of striking him down.

We ride in the same direction and I am faster, obviously I try to stay right side behind him so he cant shoot, which lasts about half a second until he just turns a bit to give me a shot. The damage to my horse or myself is considerable more then I do to him by scraping his horse, which is all I can realistically do every 30ish seconds. My horse or I am long dead before that happens.

Now you might say, why do you go after the HA if you cannot beat him? What do you think happens if the HA decides to go after me? He would be behind me and there is no way in hell to do anything about it but pray that he oversees another player charging him or run back into the thick of my teamates. The only difference is, that if he chases me he needs more arrows for my horse while I can do 0 about it. If I chase him the positive speed multiplier goes for his arrows and they pack a huge punch to horses. It is even worse if they do a quick turn into stop to shoot me because then he only needs one or two arrows to drop my horse.

I mean why don't you make an STF character get on a horse and try to take down Corsair. Or some other notorious archers/HA's. Just go after them and then express your feelings about it.

Even if the buff hits I won't be a cavalry by then anymore and I don't mind terribly much I just do what most cavalry players do now, couche early dehorse someone, play a bit with your new prey. Then go into the battleline and search for unaware targets unprotected by spears of any kind.

It all boils down to: Archer beats crossbowmen, 2h and cavalry, unshielded thrower.

1) HA & ground archers are very different from each other

2) Archers already are most vulnerable up close.  They generally die in about 2 hits.  If you get the jump on them they are dead before they can get a weapon out to block.

3) Archers already are cavalry food.  Cavalry shouldn't charge archers from the front (unless they have a shield or are heavy cav), but archers are generally stationary and often busy aiming somewhere else. 

4) If you are cavalry and you are trying to attack horse archers you are doing it wrong.  HA's best target is enemy cav.

5) With 60hp & a naked light kuyuk (42 armor) even a 8 power draw archer with a +3 longbow & +3 bodkin arrows the max an archer will deal (ie point blank) is 56 hp.  You said you're cav though, speed bonus is a double edged sword so that could account for the occasional 1 shot.  Still we're talking perfect storm conditions, aka not worth balancing around.  Feel free to prove me wrong though http://alpha-lider19.ru/MB/?go=archercalc

6) I don't mean to come across as haughty, but I've played this game a lot longer than you have. I've played cavalry archer 2h 1H/shield polearm crossbowman many different times and have seen the game from many different perspectives.  I'm not saying I know everything about the game or that everything I think should happen for balance is always right, but I'm pretty confidant I know much more about how archery actually works than you do.  If you tell me to use a STF alt to see how it feels from your perspective, let me tell you I've been there done that.

[XyNox]

@Pappus

Although this has been discussed dozents of times I agree that we are talking about a very sensitive topic here which needs further attention. The circumstances we are witnessing at the time are unacceptable. Balancing such vastly different mechanics is not easy however. Ill just qoute an essay I wrote some time ago describing the problems in detail.

Put in spoiler due to excessive lenght.

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                    lololololol            nerfnerfnerf               lobbylobby
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[Tears of Destiny]

Alright, well if we are saying that Kills don't mean anything, then what is everyone's answer to the posted total damage dealt stats released a month or so ago that showed archery (specifically bows) dealing about 9% of the total damage for both EU and NA... How are you interpreting that?

[Adamar]

"Numbers dont count" That was their new argument. That stats thread + what we see in scoreboards, brings it all out in the open. But people dont like ranged, plain and simple, so bullshit shall fly.