archery..

[Kafein]

I disagree, dodging is a fantastic way to avoid most ranged damage. No you can't (and shouldn't) be 100% effective at dodging, but if you end up taking 1 arrow when closing on an archer instead of taking 3 or 4, you just reduced the archer's damage to you by 66-75%.  Dodging is like anything else, the more you practice the better you will be at it.

You seem to forget that a kiting archer can shoot much more than just 3 or 4 arrows. Also, if you are nimble enough to reach the 3m range alive, you are pretty much dead if you are hit by the arrow. Chasing an archer as a shieldless melee means the round has been going on for a few minutes, so you probably lost a few hp here and there, not to mention that a single arrow hit is enough to be automatically hit by anyone that was aiming at you or chasing you, the projectile stun rivaling in lenght with the polestagger. If you have a lot of armor and can withstand a lot of arrows, then you'll never reach the archer anyway and you will be easily shot down, it will only take a longer time.

I did read what you wrote about shield, but I reject the argument.  If you have your shield centered and facing an archer, they are almost never going to be able to shoot over/under it unless you fuck up. If you see them aiming low, you can also slightly adjust your block lower to cover you feet, vice versa for the head.   Discounting shields from being the great ranged protection they are is absurd IMO.

I don't know if you did, but I've seen countless archers baiting shielders, strafing to the side and forward, turning 90 degrees towards the shielder and basically releasing their arrow into the shielder's head. This makes zero sense from a realism point of view but that's not the problem. The biggest problem here is that the bump that is supposed to happen when a melee facehugs enemy ranged, what should be the weapon of choice of shielders, is a sick joke, together with the shield coverage.

Shields offer great ranged protection, for as long as the shield user stays the heck away from the enemy ranged troops.

[XyNox]

That is exactly what dodging is, and dodging is utterly UP. Compare the effectiveness and reliability of blocking a melee attack and dodging a ranged attack. Blocking is reliable, if you do it right it can't end up bad for you and doesn't lose it's effectivity when you actually want to kill your opponent. Dodging is random and becomes more and more ineffective if you try to come closer to the ranged character.

And this is exactly what Im talkin about for decades. I dont know how many times I posted this but in fact I think every archery rage thread can be reduced to this very point. And I never was sarcastic here.

Dodging is very much like blocking in melee fights. Who does not block/dodge properly gets hit, easy as that. If you know what you are doing it is easy to dodge arrows, but I can honestly tell 95% of all melees Ive shot so far dont have a damn clue what they are doing when they try to dodge arrows. You might not have a 100% chance not to get hit at point blank range, but as your reward for getting into melee range you pretty much get a free kill.

I am not raging here but I dont know how to explain this to players who havent tryed archery for at least 2 gens and probably I cant as you have to experience it yourself. I as an archer myself barely have problems avoiding being shot from 2 standard archers shooting at me simultaniously, at 3 my multi task skills begin to fail though. I have had tons of close quarter archer duels with archers of every kind, even with the famous ones and some lasted until 10 - 15 arrows have been sent off in total, because we both knew how to fool and evade the enemy, even at point blank range.

I trained a few newcomer archers and gave some advise to melees on the duel servers every now and then. 10 minutes of training and some tips regarding dodging can make the life of an archer a lot more difficult. But ( thankfully ? ) people didnt put much effort into concentrating on that so far. People now a days can block like vets but dodge like MnB was released 3 days ago. I was thinking about writing a tutorial/guide about this from time to time but I feared once the weaknesses of archery would have been made public for non ranged players I would just reward people for crying for nerf instead of getting famillier with the game mechanics themselfes ( on the other side nobody would read it anyway ).

Again Im not ranging here, nor being sarcastic. If people show honest interest I am willing to spend a few minutes on the duel servers with them and giving a tip or two. You probably wont believe how many times archers fool around with you, just making you think that they can hit you, when they are bluffing in reality.

The best way of course is to do it yourself. It has been suggested dozents of times. Play a gen or two as an archer yourself. I am at my 7. gen of archery and still learn something new every now an then. It might have been the builds I tryed out in a specific order, but I think you should play at least 4 gens of archery to get a relative precise picture on what it is all about.

And now I probably say this for a 4. time, repeating myself again because I cant stress this enough. We all know we like to get our arch-enemy-class mad. But there is no rage or sarcasm or intentional false testemony involved here.

[MrShine]

Kafein I've had people who are predictable dodgers and I can blast them almost every time.  I've also had dodgers who I can't touch even after getting 4-5 shots off before I have to run or stand and fight.

Saying "you die by 1 arrow because you are hurt during the round" means nothing as far as balance is concerned, that can apply to anyone and anything.  What is true is the chance to hit someone with an arrow increases as they get closer... but it's also waaay riskier to the archer!  I can't count how many times I've been able to leap and murder an archer who thought they had time to get a shot off.  Sometimes I mess up and end up taking a shot to the face, but the archer is really testing their luck with shots like this.

The sidestep shot for shielders is the shielder's fault for not being attentive.  I dunno maybe this happens to more shielders but I hardly ever have this happen to me.

[Leshma]

I know a perfect way how to kill 3 flies at once, or how to buff archery, agility builds and WM at the same time.

First, change base value that is multiplied by WM level from 10 to 15. Example:

Weapon Mastery

lvl 1 - 35   wpp
lvl 2 - 50   wpp
lvl 3 - 65   wpp
lvl 4 - 80   wpp
lvl 5 - 95   wpp
lvl 6 - 110 wpp
lvl 7 - 125 wpp
lvl 8 - 140 wpp

That's 180 more wpp for MW 8 which is around 15 more points, for pure 2H 190 instead of 175 for example.

etc.

Next thing would be to raise weight limit for full wpf from 7 to 10.

I think this makes sense, what do you guys think?

[Lactose_the_intolerant]

I find archery pretty balanced except for max out loomed archery equipment. I'm getting sick and tired of losing 75% health to a handshot

(yes it was an arrow, not it wasnt a bolt, no i didnt get shot two rounds at the same time, yes i was 100%, yes i have lordly gearn, no im not an agi spammer)

[Kafein]

And this is exactly what Im talkin about for decades. I dont know how many times I posted this but in fact I think every archery rage thread can be reduced to this very point. And I never was sarcastic here.

Dodging is very much like blocking in melee fights. Who does not block/dodge properly gets hit, easy as that. If you know what you are doing it is easy to dodge arrows, but I can honestly tell 95% of all melees Ive shot so far dont have a damn clue what they are doing when they try to dodge arrows. You might not have a 100% chance not to get hit at point blank range, but as your reward for getting into melee range you pretty much get a free kill.

I am not raging here but I dont know how to explain this to players who havent tryed archery for at least 2 gens and probably I cant as you have to experience it yourself. I as an archer myself barely have problems avoiding being shot from 2 standard archers shooting at me simultaniously, at 3 my multi task skills begin to fail though. I have had tons of close quarter archer duels with archers of every kind, even with the famous ones and some lasted until 10 - 15 arrows have been sent off in total, because we both knew how to fool and evade the enemy, even at point blank range.

I trained a few newcomer archers and gave some advise to melees on the duel servers every now and then. 10 minutes of training and some tips regarding dodging can make the life of an archer a lot more difficult. But ( thankfully ? ) people didnt put much effort into concentrating on that so far. People now a days can block like vets but dodge like MnB was released 3 days ago. I was thinking about writing a tutorial/guide about this from time to time but I feared once the weaknesses of archery would have been made public for non ranged players I would just reward people for crying for nerf instead of getting famillier with the game mechanics themselfes ( on the other side nobody would read it anyway ).

Again Im not ranging here, nor being sarcastic. If people show honest interest I am willing to spend a few minutes on the duel servers with them and giving a tip or two. You probably wont believe how many times archers fool around with you, just making you think that they can hit you, when they are bluffing in reality.

The best way of course is to do it yourself. It has been suggested dozents of times. Play a gen or two as an archer yourself. I am at my 7. gen of archery and still learn something new every now an then. It might have been the builds I tryed out in a specific order, but I think you should play at least 4 gens of archery to get a relative precise picture on what it is all about.

And now I probably say this for a 4. time, repeating myself again because I cant stress this enough. We all know we like to get our arch-enemy-class mad. But there is no rage or sarcasm or intentional false testemony involved here.

This is all well and good, but what matters is what happens in the game. I don't know about you, but in the game I play people die of failed dodging all the time, no matter how skilled they are in other aspects of the game. The existence of a great secret about dodging isn't relevant if it has not been revealed. With such logic you could justify a nerf to daggers because theoritically you can learn to chamberblock any attack on purpose. And even if someone actually does that, there's still no reason to include this in balance considerations until it sees widespread use.

I personally experienced it was much easier to dodge projectiles playing an archer or thrower simply because I didn't had to come up close to do damage. Also, at close ranges there's no way someone can react at the moment the shot is fired. The best you can do is guessing that moment or just doing an unpredictable zigzag, it's no mystery melee centric players aren't interested in that "skill". Roulette is more thrilling.

[Leshma]

I find archery pretty balanced except for max out loomed archery equipment. I'm getting sick and tired of losing 75% health to a handshot

(yes it was an arrow, not it wasnt a bolt, no i didnt get shot two rounds at the same time, yes i was 100%, yes i have lordly gearn, no im not an agi spammer)

You only take huge damage if you move forward. That's how ranged damage works, stay still or go backswards and damage will be minimal. Go full speed in a straight line and arrows will hurt like a bitch.

It's not the best idea going fellowing archers without shield.

[Lactose_the_intolerant]

You only take huge damage if you move forward. That's how ranged damage works, stay still or go backswards and damage will be minimal. Go full speed in a straight line and arrows will hurt like a bitch.

It's not the best idea going fellowing archers without shield.

ah shit visibly i forgot one thing : was not following archer or actually moving come to think about it

and even a non loomed archer when i move forwords with an arrow to the chest does at best 50% damage and thats ok for me

but 75% to the hand, plz no

[XyNox]

This is all well and good, but what matters is what happens in the game. I don't know about you, but in the game I play people die of failed dodging all the time, no matter how skilled they are in other aspects of the game. The existence of a great secret about dodging isn't relevant if it has not been revealed. With such logic you could justify a nerf to daggers because theoritically you can learn to chamberblock any attack on purpose. And even if someone actually does that, there's still no reason to include this in balance considerations until it sees widespread use.

I personally experienced it was much easier to dodge projectiles playing an archer or thrower simply because I didn't had to come up close to do damage. Also, at close ranges there's no way someone can react at the moment the shot is fired. The best you can do is guessing that moment or just doing an unpredictable zigzag, it's no mystery melee centric players aren't interested in that "skill". Roulette is more thrilling.

I cant disagree with your reasoning here. But still how can you justify nerfing something only because you dont want to put effort into learning how to exploit its natural weaknesses ? It's as rediculous as demanding to nerf melee damage because blocking is too hard but we knew what would happen then. Of course this is not the case. The case is melee players complaining about ranged attacks and not vice versa. This again should mean something is right with melee mechanics but something is wrong with ranged mechanics.

If this would be another community and there would be other devs I would probably agree. But right now I see 2 main problems.

First, hate amongst different classes in this community ... its a phenomenon. Sometimes I can imagine people are sitting in a 2H knight costume in front of their computers irl when they spit out another rant. Not only do people hate each other for using ez mode classes, while their class is the most UP (ofcourse), but first and foremost they go insane when it comes to archers.

Archer-hating in this game is the equivalent of calling other kids gay when you go to elemantary school even if you dont even care, just so the mean kids wont bully you and you still belong to the cool kids on the schoolyard. The amount of bullshit you read regarding ranged topics is just enormous and obviously a sign of mass hysteria/puberty/peer pressure/general butthurtness as rational and logical arguments are scarce at the con side in general. I am pretty certain that a majority of people complaining about archery here in fact know that it is mainly their own fault when they die to ranged at longer ranges/avoidable shots, or they are just newbies.

Also the melee lobby is undeniably a lot bigger than the ranged lobby. A bowman killing the heroic 2h knight is just inacceptable for the majority of those people, just like it was considered in history. These are my observations and lead to more complaining/lobbying in the first place of course due to the sheer amount of potential "victims" for ranged attacks. But people complaining about this and that is a granted factor and will not be changeable. Not everyone has the intelligence and foresight to act as an appropriate balancer thankfully, thats what the devs are for, which gets me to the next point.


The fact that this is a mod, an indie game if you will, there is a somewhat personal relationship between devs and regular players. Usual games developed by big, coldharted gameindustries can be good, but even if there is something that annoys you you cant just post on their forums and expect to get anything changed. This however is the case in cRPG. I cannot exactly prove how many changes have been applied to the game just as a cause of player criticism, if at all. The impression that you can change something by just ranting about it is there whatsoever.

So what does that mean ?

The reason behind all the ranged hate is that even the most average player who cannot perfom very well with his generic 2h build and does not have a very deep understanding of the advanced game mechanics will still rage about archers because the fact, that people who are better, thus more famous than him are doing so as well and the fact that calling for nerfs, simply not putting any effort into inventing strategies to outsmart your opponent is always easier to admit your own faults and to get the brain working. Massive lobbying will get the job done as well probably. Furthermore dying by ranged simply does not fit the picture of the heroic knight riding on his shiny horse and the mere amount of people approaching the game with this picture in mind seems to be much bigger than all archers combined.

This is how I see it. And although I cant take these people amiss as what we are talking about are subjective impressions here, simply no complaints of this kind qualify as a valid argument in a balancing discussion.

/Dr. XyNox out

[Rumblood]

ah shit visibly i forgot one thing : was not following archer or actually moving come to think about it

and even a non loomed archer when i move forwords with an arrow to the chest does at best 50% damage and thats ok for me

but 75% to the hand, plz no

Speed bonus also comes into play with elevation. Shooting from a wall or hill does more damage than on the ground. There is also a random factor in all damage that causes widely varying amounts of damage from a similar swing/shot.

[zagibu]

I think with a slight 30% damage nerf, archery will be well balanced.

[Lactose_the_intolerant]

Speed bonus also comes into play with elevation. Shooting from a wall or hill does more damage than on the ground. There is also a random factor in all damage that causes widely varying amounts of damage from a similar swing/shot.

i know that, and i visibly mentioned to say we were on flat ground, it was that snowy map completly flooded with this akward small field in the middle

I think with a slight 30% damage nerf, archery will be well balanced.

i jsut believe loomed archery needs a tweak

[BlindGuy]

i jsut believe loomed archery needs a tweak

True it needs a buff, good call man.


A side note: Shielders who get killed MORE than once by an archer who sidesteps and headshots them at the last second, in a 1v1 scenario, are fucking retarded and deserve what they get. This happend to me 1month after warband was released, when I first installed it. I had played MnB for years and years, but obviously not seen this, cause multi was brand new.

I thought, HEY, thats pretty sneaky, better watch out for that in future. Since then, it has never happend, cause when I make a mistake, I try to learn from it, but that doesnt seem to be the case. Players STILL rage about ranged, even though, I CANNOT stress this enough: GET A SHIELD.

There are some shields that are good for fighting. The big round ones are not the best for this. But with 6 shieldskill, and a round shield, heavy round shield, even with Plain Round Shield, if you get shot its YOUR OWN FUCKING FAULT.

If you are too badass to use a shield to block arrows, its also exceedingly easy to dodge arrows, they are quite slow in crpg, the archers dont have some hitscan sniper rifle, and even BEYOND dodging or blocking arrows: USE YOUR BRAIN--> seldom do we play on random steppe, there is almost ALWAYS a way to play your archer opponent into a position he cannot escape from. But, unfortunatly, if you do not have a shield, you are an archers natural prey.

Scissors does not complain when rock beats it, but in turn rock must not complain that paper is OP. There is a counter for everything, but one character cannot and SHOULD not be able to counter EVERYTHING, or we would all play as that character, and have done with it.

[zagibu]

True it needs a buff, good call man.


A side note: Shielders who get killed MORE than once by an archer who sidesteps and headshots them at the last second, in a 1v1 scenario, are fucking retarded and deserve what they get. This happend to me 1month after warband was released, when I first installed it. I had played MnB for years and years, but obviously not seen this, cause multi was brand new.

I thought, HEY, thats pretty sneaky, better watch out for that in future. Since then, it has never happend, cause when I make a mistake, I try to learn from it, but that doesnt seem to be the case. Players STILL rage about ranged, even though, I CANNOT stress this enough: GET A SHIELD.

There are some shields that are good for fighting. The big round ones are not the best for this. But with 6 shieldskill, and a round shield, heavy round shield, even with Plain Round Shield, if you get shot its YOUR OWN FUCKING FAULT.

If you are too badass to use a shield to block arrows, its also exceedingly easy to dodge arrows, they are quite slow in crpg, the archers dont have some hitscan sniper rifle, and even BEYOND dodging or blocking arrows: USE YOUR BRAIN--> seldom do we play on random steppe, there is almost ALWAYS a way to play your archer opponent into a position he cannot escape from. But, unfortunatly, if you do not have a shield, you are an archers natural prey.

Scissors does not complain when rock beats it, but in turn rock must not complain that paper is OP. There is a counter for everything, but one character cannot and SHOULD not be able to counter EVERYTHING, or we would all play as that character, and have done with it.

I agree, archer damage nerf is really needed.

[Son Of Odin]

Tell me to get a shield and I will shove one of them up your arse...

(click to show/hide)

And don't try to think it is going to be a steel buckler. Huscarl's shield or heavy board shield might be more fitting...