Possible root cause(s) of rage in cRPG and Warband. (long)

[Zisa]

Here is a question to mull over - Does the game Warband have a dual personality?

The appeal of the game, the target audience, seems to be the RTS crowd and the Action crowd.

RTS - you have the Stronghold games, Lords of the Realms, etc.
Command armies and take over the map, like playing Risk without having to consult a rules pamphlet or search for dice that get thrown at opponents.

Action - Screw that armchair general crap, I want to smash someone in the face!

Historical Simulation wankers - lets not forget them, they always show up to voice their opinions on historical accuracy. So I guess it is more of a multiple personality and not just split.

Now Warband itself at it's core is an action game. Unfortunately, Taleworlds wanted to maintain it's fanbase which was not as narrow as a strictly action game would be. Thus we have khergits and horse archery.
From an RTS/histerical wanker view, these fit.
From an 'action' viewpoint these were always a headache to 'try' to balance into the game world.

Face it, here is a class of character with the ability to never get within range of the enemy while inflicting damage. It is fun in single player to circle jerk vast hordes of enemies and constantly hit your loot trunk to reload on arrows.
From a multiplayer 'action' viewpoint, it's one of the stupidest things ever. Seriously, most of the time I feel we may as well have that guy on the flying carpet shooting fireballs from the sky.

There is always justifications of course, and like other stupid mechanics the 'primary' justification ends up not being the primary use of that mechanic at all.

Biggest justification for a few things - it's anti cavalry.
You and I know by now anything anti cavalry is usually used as anything but.
Players are not entirely stupid, so they quickly figure out that a good bet to being effective and helping the team is to take the easiest targets. And that is usually the infantry that is otherwise engaged and looking somewhere else, or the goon 2hander who disdains a shield.
Oh and that brings up early the old 'shield counters range' argument. Shield is kind of useless when you block the range in front of you and the mounted tard behind you shoots you in the back.
Mind you that 13 shield is a great turd of a troll - haha.

Back to that 'anti cavalry' - most horseman avoid pikers as long as they can, except for the truly daring or truly daft. When pikers really have to be faced clever horseman team up. Often you can see characters usually in heavy armor supporting infantry fighting other infantry. I'm pretty much ok with this though, except for the shenanigans of the spin thrust, possible with any thrusting weapon. It is quite silly to me to see these pikers and lol thrusters barely tap an opponent from the side and inflict maximum damage - which is how to get around the glance mechanic - another truly irritating feature who's existence is meant to improve immersion (or some such crap) while accomplishing the exact opposite. Does it make sense that a fast dagger built for thrusting continually glances off of any armor? Personally I could see glancing removed and gladly accept damage from hits that should have hit in the first place.

Crush through - If it is at all possible to allow chamber blocks versus CT overhead attacks please make it so, then I would be ok with this.

Slow me down, terrain penalties and rain clogging me boots reducing the effectiveness of athletics. It's usually the high STR low INT build players that have a problem with foot work. Combined with the added delays to the swings it makes dancing more difficult then it need be and forces a disadvantage versus cavalry as attacks are more telegraphed, and it makes it easier for cav to run you over without getting hit. Also, back when the 2h swings got this millstone delay there was some mention of 'good things are coming as a result' - I have not noticed these yet, maybe I am slow.

fear of ninjas
Lower strength high agility builds usually have to score multiple hits while not making a mistake or die to that one enemy hit; the continual snail creep of lowering weapon speeds and the total elimination of anything approaching 200 wpf hinders the action. People can sing praises of 3 minute duels these days, yet in the long distant past of cRPG blocking was actually an accomplishment and a skill desirable to be constantly improved. I've watched a couple good players nowadays who it seems lazily riposte or block as the mood fits.

Heirlooms, weapons versus Armor.
Tier 3 heavy armor gaines 5 points to body and leg armor.
Tier 3 2hander gain a point of speed, 1 or 2 thurst and 3 cut.
Again seems even more of an advantage in survivability to strength builds. Ultimately even your tier 3 weapon is going to do less and less damage as other armor pieces get loomed. Really can't say what the numbers 'mean' but there you go. It would seem having 4 tier 3 armor pieces is going to be more effective then 4 tier 3 weapons as you can only swing one weapon at a time.
Numbers
Often enough some suggestion in the suggestions/balance forums end up with a lot of numbers bandied about - numbers, but what do they really mean? Here's where the intangibles get ignored and usually common sense as well.

Cavalry.
I've always enjoyed fighting cavalry, it's my favourite food.
Nerfs to other classes usually means a nerf to cavalry is going to follow.

My least favourite cav nerf has been the restriction to lance arc. One of the justifications for this I have heard is to give non lancer cav more of a chance, to which I say, screw them and their shite bump slashing. Bump stabbing of course is another irritation from any melee cav. The most fun I had as cav was going after other cav - not the wisest or kdr'st thing to do but who gives a rat's arse about kdr when there is a more thrilling challenge? Maybe I'll check out the new lancer cav one day.
As a boon to infantry, how the heck does this change cavalry running one through from behind? Oh, it means less cavalry will try to challenge you head on (yes there are a few), as they are better off thanks to this 'nerf' to circle like sharks and take the easiest opportunites.

The biggest problem with cavalry has always been infantry tunnel vision and a refusal to constantly look around. Hey, I mapped my 'view outfit' key or whatever the look around command is called to my left shift. It is not a guarantee against getting ganked by cav, but hopefully it may help some of you avoid getting lanced from behind at the 6:30 mark as you trot from the spawn towards the center of the map. Unless you are chatting, then you'll probably still get lanced from behind at about the 6:30 mark.

Earlier Collisions ... Introduced to eliminate those clowns swinging through walls and other nonsense, it has the added bonus of making fighting on any slope almost random and certainly more punitive (maps are either flat earth society or some too hilly village). Eliminating one frustration but creating more.

Pole Stagger
The usual justification goes something like: it balances out the crappy animations.
So it's perfectly fine for some whiffle bat spear to stun lock someone - ok, it's not, but it's even worse when a poleaxe gets a hit then more free hits due to this nonsense.

Speed and feinting
I am probably as surprised as the guy who gets hit after a feint. I still do it, out of habit I suppose, but I can't help thinking that the current slower pace of melee is not challenging players to improve but is really dulling them and their reactions. There is the occasional long fight, but watching from deathcam there are far more 'why didn't he block is he an ai' type of moments.

Add to this frustrating mix, it would seem the devs really like strategus (the RTS crowd) and the results do not seem to favour the action crowd.

I will say though, I've seen some nice new items and textures.

Congrats on reading this far, if you didn't AND post tl:dr I am putting you on my list.

[Kafein]

Some of your points are good, but I really can't accept this :

Slow me down, terrain penalties and rain clogging me boots reducing the effectiveness of athletics. It's usually the high STR low INT build players that have a problem with foot work. Combined with the added delays to the swings it makes dancing more difficult then it need be and forces a disadvantage versus cavalry as attacks are more telegraphed, and it makes it easier for cav to run you over without getting hit. Also, back when the 2h swings got this millstone delay there was some mention of 'good things are coming as a result' - I have not noticed these yet, maybe I am slow.

Characters in cRPG lack any kind of inertia, except when you wear super heavy armor with a str build. Due to this, dancing is extremely effective, and it shouldn't.

[Apsod]

Read the whole thing. I agree with you on pretty much everything, but what is the point of this post. I mean, what do you want to change? Or do you just want to tell people what you think

[Zisa]

Read the whole thing. I agree with you on pretty much everything, but what is the point of this post. I mean, what do you want to change? Or do you just want to tell people what you think

Just textualising what may be on some people's minds. There is always the hope some dev will read it and maybe explore some possibilities.

[Zisa]

Some of your points are good, but I really can't accept this :

Characters in cRPG lack any kind of inertia, except when you wear super heavy armor with a str build. Due to this, dancing is extremely effective, and it shouldn't.

Well I regretfully must put you  in the high str low int group then, because I disagree with you.

[Kivlov]

Dancing is an advantage afforded high AGI players. They can dodge attacks with high athletics because they can change directions quickly whereas Str crutchers just take it on the chin. It's how it should be.

Didn't know rain slowed people down. And Id really like to see polestun eliminated. None of these high strength pole/bardiche 2 hitting me because I goofed a block and they mouse turned the second swing into me before I could block anymore would be swell.

[Kafein]

Well I regretfully must put you  in the high str low int group then, because I disagree with you.

Most of the chars I play have 18 agi or more. My main is 15/21. My problem is not being high STR, it's hating the footwork paradigm that imposed itself over the melee combat as player skill improved. And hating the now quite abundant fake peasants with 8 ATH that are both barely catchable for infantry because they are too fast and for cavalry because in this game you can sprint in one direction and instantly make a 90 degree turn without failing terribly like any human being, or even slowing down.

I suggest adding at least 10 units of weight to nude characters, to reduce this sillyness.

Don't get me wrong, I think the agi/str balance is ok at the moment. But everyone is generally too agile. You might even speed up the game if a fixed weight is added to all characters, to make up for it.

[Earthdforce]

No rage about high strength katana users? I am ashamed .

All in all, I mostly agree with your points, and I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write this all out. I know it wasn't easy.

[Cris]

Historical Simulation wankers - lets not forget them, they always show up to voice their opinions on historical accuracy. So I guess it is more of a multiple personality and not just split.

Now Warband itself at it's core is an action game. Unfortunately, Taleworlds wanted to maintain it's fanbase which was not as narrow as a strictly action game would be. Thus we have khergits and horse archery.
From an RTS/histerical wanker view, these fit.
From an 'action' viewpoint these were always a headache to 'try' to balance into the game world.

Face it, here is a class of character with the ability to never get within range of the enemy while inflicting damage. It is fun in single player to circle jerk vast hordes of enemies and constantly hit your loot trunk to reload on arrows.
From a multiplayer 'action' viewpoint, it's one of the stupidest things ever. Seriously, most of the time I feel we may as well have that guy on the flying carpet shooting fireballs from the sky.

First of all, I did read all. Just comenting on what interest me here.

If you think only mongolian type armies had Horse Archers, you are mistaken. They had HA units, but all armies had HAs, even european one. (lets not forget mounted crossbowmen, and then with time mounted guns)

Easy to see you dont play HA nor like them. Bad arrow damage (even standing still you get horseback penalty), ranged mounted doesnt not get attacker speed bonus/penalty, bad aiming, limited arrows, unlessness on foot and stupidly high upkeep (Im currently playing 1H cav with much more expensive gear and I still make money on low multipliers) and that it actually takes skill to play well - stress on "play well" an annoying HA doesnt mean he's a good one. Good HAs in cRPG i can count with my fingers.

HA is not sputid from a multiplier point of view, I like it; its a challenge, I like fighting them as HA, as footman (unless doing a unshielded alt, but thats the same for archers) and as horseman. If you know what you are doing, you can beat most HAs. HAs also give a game a great amount of tactical diversity and encurages team play.

I know that if you are on your own and you are fighting 2 or more HAs it sucks, but look at the stats, there aren't that many HAs in the servers, so that chances of that happening is that the footman/cav man went on his own so it isnt a game imbalance...

Anyway raging is good, i like it. It shows you care about the mod...If the mod was really bad, people wouldnt rage like we do here, we would just leave

[Zisa]

Most of the chars I play have 18 agi or more. My main is 15/21. My problem is not being high STR, it's hating the footwork paradigm that imposed itself over the melee combat as player skill improved. And hating the now quite abundant fake peasants with 8 ATH that are both barely catchable for infantry because they are too fast and for cavalry because in this game you can sprint in one direction and instantly make a 90 degree turn without failing terribly like any human being, or even slowing down.

I suggest adding at least 10 units of weight to nude characters, to reduce this sillyness.

Don't get me wrong, I think the agi/str balance is ok at the moment. But everyone is generally too agile. You might even speed up the game if a fixed weight is added to all characters, to make up for it.

Yikes!
Well my 8 ath peasant is more like 6 ath thanks to the stupid weapon choice of flamberge, but that's my own fault.

I question your use of the term sprint, as it looks more like a leisurely stroll or trot to me, and firmly believe the characters are not agile enough. I particularily enjoyed the footwork paradigm, and fondly remember fights with other speed freaks (the first being canary). I had no problem in the long ago past of dying to str monsters such as Wallace, and feel agility (athletics and weapon master) have suffered to the point of being more of a choice for those determined to use that playstyle rather then it being as competitive as a strength build.

And yes I am aware my views are likely coloured by a predisposition to a certain playstyle, but it does seem that every patch has done it's best to eliminate that very style.

[Gisbert_of_Thuringia]

You forgot to say something about last archery change --> highspeed sniping archers with pinpoint accuracy headshotting everyone even with low pd.


Nice text so far


To the question of someone what the reason for this is. Read title:  it's about what makes people rage. All these things you wrote about make me rage, too. And what is it that makes us rage? Exactly: All the stupid unrealistic things. Make the game more realistic and more people will be happy.

[Casimir]

The cav lance angles did drive most lancers into hunting infantry / horse stabbing rather than fighting real cav fights IMO.

Basically the Dev team has nerfed everything so hard from native that its all pretty crappy these days.  When it takes so long to kill people it becomes fairly frustrating.

[Kafein]

Yikes!
Well my 8 ath peasant is more like 6 ath thanks to the stupid weapon choice of flamberge, but that's my own fault.

I question your use of the term sprint, as it looks more like a leisurely stroll or trot to me, and firmly believe the characters are not agile enough. I particularily enjoyed the footwork paradigm, and fondly remember fights with other speed freaks (the first being canary). I had no problem in the long ago past of dying to str monsters such as Wallace, and feel agility (athletics and weapon master) have suffered to the point of being more of a choice for those determined to use that playstyle rather then it being as competitive as a strength build.

And yes I am aware my views are likely coloured by a predisposition to a certain playstyle, but it does seem that every patch has done it's best to eliminate that very style.

Athletics is more useful than it ever was, thanks to the footwork paradigm it has become a necessity for all builds, cavalry included. I don't know any experienced player that doesn't max it so it clearly does not need any buff. WM isn't that good but still remains one of the top necessities of ranged chars, hybrids and people that use particularly slow weapons.

Agi builds are very competitive, mostly because today bounces never happen due to the attack being too weak. Ask around, many top 2h/pole players are 18/21. Nearly all the ranged players also have at least 21 agi.

The balance team as done a very moderated job on that matter. Movement acceleration remains untouched since the dawn of cRPG, and armor got nerfed to hell.


About the motivations of this thread : unrealistic human agility is part of the things that make me rage the most. Playing cavalry against peasant archers feels like controlling a supertanker which goal is to hit powerboats equipped with rocket launchers.

[oohillac]

Some good points Zisa.
While I can't speak to it all, I believe that the polestagger should definitely be looked at for slashing polearms.  My hoplite needs it, but a GLA/Poleaxe/whathaveyou does not.

As for Cav, players need to open their minds a little and consider hybriding slightly for either a shield or a crossbow.  I know you cannot (flamberge), but other players should consider it.  Even carrying a 1-slot Military Fork (with no wpf) can deter cavalry quite a bit.  Unsheathable-weapon players can spawn with a pole, then drop it when engaging infantry.

Dual personality?  Maybe.  Personally, Strat always seemed like a strategy/wargame side-game, with action-based CRPG at the forefront.  Definitely less twitch-based action compared to, say, first-person shooters.  In CRPG carrying a shield can make up for blocking reflexes.

[Joker86]

I think the main reason for rage in cRPG (that's what the title says this thread is about) are not so much the points you listed up.

I think it's the missing will of the players to leave their subjective point of view. All that counts for them is their "micro-game", in other words the player fighting another player. They don't care a single bit about the "macro-game", which is more about teamplay and tactics. Even if you manage to make a team follow a plan, their motivation will be more to be able to kill enemy players again (after having been raped several times and being prowd owner of a 0:3 k/d), instead of winning the round, which is what the game is about. (It is about winning rounds, because your k/d has no impact on the game, but your w/l determines the XP and the money you get! And the standard mode is TEAM deathmatch, not deathmach free for all!)

The best example is cav. I think the class is heavily underpowered, stat wise, especially heavy cav. But in reality, on the servers, cav can easily be the dominating class, and the team which got more cav usually wins the map. At least light and medium cav does. They do it even with their awful stats, because the rest of the players on the servers sucks incredibly in dealing with cav. I bet even with 0 bump damage, 0 horse armour and 1 horse hitpoint you would still have several decent players on the server having 3:1 k/d or even better.

My point is: cav is not dealt with by skill, it's dealt with by the right behaviour, which is called teamplay. (And a few other things like not listening to music while playing or constantly looking around while walking).

And this observation applies to a lot of other classes... shieldmen, two handers, maulers and so on... even HA's can be countered on equal chances (well, better than nothing, huh?)

But as long as players refuse to change their mind, and leave certain enemies to other teammates, while trying to concentrate on their own specialization and helping out other teammates (instead of just "hunting your target class"), they will always suffer from the impression of having been killed too easily. Which will always lead to flaming and "nerf this and that"-whine-threads.

Make cRPG being more of a strategy game, than of a skill based "who's got the better reflexes and muscle memory?"-game, and the nerf cries will become fewer. Change the mod description and the information on the way to the download, you can change more at this point than at any other moment in the carreer of a cRPG player. It's the same rules like educating children. What you teach them first is remembered and followed the best. Then add ingame features that support teamplay and make coordinations within the team better, a command system would be the most important of those features. Changing the default game mode from battle, which is basing on killing the enemy to something different, which bases on holding several points on the map would shift the focus from killing enemies to winning rounds.

Change that stuff, and you will see which classes are really OP. It won't be the that many as you would think.