Range is overwhelming the game right now... or thats what people say. I personally use a shield and it works sometimes in keeping me alive against range. I notice a few things along the way playing this and here is what I think range should be more like.
It's overwhelming because of it's high number. But it's needed against cavs.
Sadly, i don't think you can balance the game by changing one class and not the other at the moment. Cav and Range are in the same boat.
Range needs to stop running away constantly: The ability to easily outrun dedicated melee players means that range will always want to run and pew pew again. Given this information, I suggest that after drawing / aiming any range weapon, the bonus from athletics granted to that character is stalled for 5 seconds. WHY you may ask? Aside from BALANCE, it is realistic given the exact breathing required to fire a bow / or xbow / throwing weapon, which usually has to be steady. To make a bit of variance, each point in throwing / archery would lower this cool down by .3 seconds for each point. This would give a mobility edge to bows / thrown compared to xbows.
An archer and a thrower NEEDS to move after each shot/throw, else he'll being shot by other people. That's why athletics is important, to quickly move after shooting. If your effective athletic is zero after shooting :
-archers won't be able to stay with the group.
-all kind of range will "easily" be picked off by cavs.
-range will definitely find it easier to shoot down other range (specially xbow are going to have a good time getting rid of archers, since they can aim for ever and wait for the archer to be as slow as a lv1 peasant who forgot to put one point in athletics... except he's wearing heavier armor, quivers and bow.
I know it's frustrating chasing an archer. That's why there's "dedicated" agi builds to do that. If even a 24/12 melee can catch up to an archer, while dodging effectively, things will be broken.
Range on horseback: A penalty needs to be added for reload times for all range weapons (except throwing) on horseback. Being on a horse and firing a range weapon is difficult (I would know I'm Hungarian... Attila the Hun, horse archer empire) and with the animal moving makes it more difficult to properly reload a weapon. I suggest that weapons reload 50% slower then normal on horseback, however power draw skill will reduce this time by 5% each point. Xbow will get no reduction. Secondly, while aiming a ranged weapon on horseback, the ability to control the horse should be reduced 50%, so WHILE YOU ARE AIMING AND FIRING your ability to maneuver is hindered. Please note that this would be a 50% softening of its turning speed, and acceleration and NOT A 50% SPEED REDUCTION. This is also supported by balance, and reality, in the case that telling a horse what to do with only your legs is difficult to do, and not as an effective way to guide a horse as pulling the reigns.
That seems a bit hard. Take only one of the two nerfs here. 25% speed reduction for archers and 50% longer reload time for xbow will significantly reduce the amount of "spam" indeed, but it's thanks to this spam that they can keep decent damage output. Their damage is already reduced on horseback, if you reduce their shooting speed, it will really not be beneficial to "invest" so much money on an horse.
The 50% softening of acceleration and maneuver is also silly. They definitely need it when chasing or being chased by other cavs. They don't usually use their top speed too, since it really makes them inaccurate, so nerf that if you want.
This is not a balance, this is a great idea to destroy the HX and HA.
WPF Curve: I imagine this will be addressed soon, but I just wanted to point out that high WM was supposed to be appealing to hybrids, now its not really necessary since you don't need much WM to get 2 skills above 100.
I'm sorry, but it's still appealing for hybrids. 100 wpf in archery or throwing is definitely not enough. Especially if, as a melee hybrid, you want to have a medium armor for when you go melee, reducing even more your effective wpf.
Still, i'm expecting some nice changes with the new wpf curve.
All in all, in thoses "BALANCING RANGE without nerfing damage" i only see a "NERFING RANGE without nerfing damage BUT nerfing damage output by sec".
And, it's not even for the sake of balance... At first, i even though it was a troll, but it seems you're serious about this.
And since you don't have enough :
If these changes were implemented, I would like to see the body damage done by range return to its original amount.
So you ALSO want to nerf the common damage in body shots finally. Thanks for a VERY MISGUIDED title.
Stabilizing arrow damage and making it less random is also a welcome addition. People who get hit by an arrow would know what to expect from additional hits easier, less random arrow glancing, easier for archers to predict their damage output.
+1. Definitely this. Random damage is a pain for both the victim and the shooter.
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