Change Crossbow and Bolt Weight Back to Normal

[Rico]

@Pentecost

I don't drop it because everyone can pick it up. To pick up a bow, you need PD. To pick up a crossbow, you just need some STR you have anyway. I don't want to be dissed after dropping it.

[Rico]

@Grumbs

Again, smart crossbowers don't kite. Kiting with a crossbow is stupid as you are useless while kiting. So be happy about kiting crossbowmen in the enemy team.

I agree that it's different for archers. They can reload while running, turn around and shoot you. But crossbowmen just can't. Not even in the divine crossbow paradise this is possible.

[Rico]

Its to reduce kiting and encourage people to stop and fight in melee

Why reduce kiting when it's stupid anyway? For Grumbs to get the kill instead of his light-armored teammate?

[Pentecost]

The weight is pretty ridiculous.

 For a crossbow and two stacks of Steel Bolts it's 13.5 (an individual Steel Bolt weighs .41, almost the same as Hatchet, Wooden Sword, or Sickle, and there are twelve of them); if we assume a melee weapon of 2 weight we wind up with 15.5 for weapons alone.

For an Arbalest user that weight changes to 9.3 + an assumed 2 weight sidearm for a total of 11.3.

...whereas I can go into battle with a shield (Elite Cav), hoplite weapon (Red Tassel) and a 1-hand (Iberian Mace) and get away with only 9.5 weight from it.

The situation before the weight changes wasn't exactly ideal either though. A player with a normal crossbow (3 weight), 1 stack of steel bolts (2.2 weight) and a German Greatsword (2.5 weight), only had 7.7 weight in total for weapons despite using all 4 of his slots. In other words, the weight of your Elite Cavalry Shield alone (5.5 weight) was more than what his crossbow and bolts weighed together, even though it's the lightest high-tier shield that isn't a buckler.

[Rico]

Wow, that's like: It was bad before, so there is no reason to make it better now.

[karasu]

This was more of a Shik measure so archers can't QQ pointing fingers to crossbowmen "but their ammo is still light, nerf them too disregard making any sense of it!".

Oh well.. ┐(￣ー￣)┌

[Rumblood]

The ability to bug out is of extreme strategic value. It is the complaint of tincans that led to nerf of agility builds in various ways. In archers with rapid firing bows, it gave the ability to have perfect measure (inability to be hit while delivering hits themselves).
Battle, where a majority of players live, is not a 1 vs 1 theoretical situation. Smart players recognize when to go down in a flurry of swings, or when to haul anchor and take off back to their team's scrum (I won't poorly describe it as a battle line). In strategus, however, there certainly are battle line/shield walls to get back to hide and reload.
A light armored infantry with weapon and xbow and bolts, should not simply be able to bug out when the tincan gets into range. A light armored with only a melee weapon, certainly. That is what the difference in the builds should be. The ability to take hits vs the ability to control the engagement. But add in a ranged component for the light armored infantry, and they should no longer be able to extract themselves when the tincan gets close. They control the engagement at a distance now with a bolt through the head, not by being able to run away when they miss their shot.

[Rico]

You can also bug out with low movement speed, as long as you have infantry teammates who cover your back, intercepting the enemy in the right moment. This does not serve the discussion. Or do you want to forbid archers and crossbowmen to move in general? This would turn cRPG into a RPG with tower-defence elements, similar to Dungeon Defenders. Maybe you should start to play this

However, imagine the following situation: I am a random crossbow guy and I shoot at a tincan. I miss. I run away. I am behind the (non-) battle line. A horseman kills me. A possible rock, scissor, paper situation. It's fair, isn't it?

In the end, the advantage about a higher movement speed for crossbowmen is not that they can retreat. The reason is that retreating is risky because of cavalry and dead ends. It's much better to fight back in melee, otherwise, they are easy prey. And when infantry is behind a crossbowman, he can't kite and shoot in the classic way archers used to do it before the patch. So this is really not about kiting or retreating.

It's rather about the ability to move fast with your melee weapon. Archers can go melee with their bow. They reload it and target approaching infantry, even shielders. All they have to do to kill a shielder is standing before the enemy with a pulled bowstring, and when he is close enough, they step to the side and hit him around the shield. Crossbowmen can't reload the crossbow that easily and therefore, they need melee skill to offer at least a little bit resistance. I don't want to make them as strong as infantrists, of course not. But they should at least have a slight chance.

And for this chance, movement speed is essential. If you focus your build on your crossbow, it could be 12/27 or 15/24, for example. There is not much power strike, and the crossbowman has to fight very well not to bounce off the enemy's armor. Without the old movement speed, the slight chance to win a melee fight is even much slighter.

If you really want stationary ranged players who can't defend themselves even a bit in melee, play a fucking tower defence game. This is not gambling: I am a ranger, so I have exactly one chance to kill the enemy infantrist, and when this shot misses (or is sucked into the huge forcefield of a round steel buckler, wooohoooo), I can actually kill myself because there is no point in surrendering anyway. I accept that I can't shoot the feet of a buckler user, that's okay. But then, once this guy is standing right before me, I want to be able to fight back. Give me my movement speed back to do that! When I don't deal much damage, I at least want to be dancing around the enemy, trying to distract him. With the correct footwork, I can even wound him when I do it very well. When I am slow as hell, this does not work.

There might be guys like SB_Veselov mentioned by Leshma. They use a dedicated crossbow build and kite every round in battle. It's annoying, I agree. On the other hand, this is nothing more than escalation of commitment. He is doing bullshit while kiting, it's pointless to run away, trying to get that much space between him and the enemy to actually reload the crossbow. In the whole time, he could have helped 5 teammates in melee. He just does not reflect about what he is doing, and he keeps making the same mistake over and over again. It's bothering everyone on Eu1 and it's not even smart what he is doing. But is that a reason why I am not allowed to use my 1 slot melee weapon the same way as I did before? I used to be weak in melee, but I always had a slight chance to trick the enemy by good footwork and fast movement. Same for many other crossbow players. I personally do not want cRPG to be less fun just because some random guy is annoying the hell out of everyone. If it makes you so angry that he is kiting, just tell him to stop. Talk to him, but don't nerf the whole class for no reason. And this guy is only annoying you guys on battle. HRE is playing siege most of the time, and I just want to have fun there. Nerf the movement speed of crossbowmen on battle, but leave siege unaffected. Noone is kiting there anyway, as there are always the walls of the castle who force you to stop. Just please, do something about it, but find a better solution than making me super-slow as if I would wear plate when I am only wearing my reinforced ragged outfit.

[Rumblood]

Tons of QQ.

You want the ranged capability, take the downsides too. You can't defend yourself because you are slower? L2Play. Try archer with 1 wpf in melee, a 12 inch long hammer and no shield. Or quit trying to be Rambo and DON'T TAKE A XBOW so you can dance a ballet again. And don't EVEN try to this crap that an archer is better than a xbow vs a shielder at close range 

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

You want the ranged capability, take the downsides too. You can't defend yourself because you are slower? L2Play. Try archer with 1 wpf in melee, a 12 inch long hammer and no shield. Or quit trying to be Rambo and DON'T TAKE A XBOW so you can dance a ballet again. And don't EVEN try to this crap that an archer is better than a xbow vs a shielder at close range 

You can make a proper archer with a few stats in melee easily, you just choose to stack athletics to the max.

[Grumbs]

It's rock-paper-scissors after all. When you are rock, be happy to beat scissors and accept to be killed by paper. Even a two-hand-hero is not omnipotent.

I want my cake now.

I don't agree that this game is intended to be rock/paper/scissors with its game design. If I meet a ranged player in melee I want to have a proper melee fight, not feel like I press a button and I win because I'm in melee range. I don't play games that reward people for simply taking part, you should be rewarded by how well you played not that you faced your class that you counter.

Its more like everyone is Rock to some extent. Then you have Rock vs Rock and then we have Rock + Paper or Rock + Dynamite, and other permutations. Since everyone has some aspect of Rock that is what the game should be balanced around. We need soft counters rather than hard counters if we all can use Rock. I don't want to simplify it like this though.

Cav can counter melee and melee can counter cav. Ranged can counter melee and melee can defensively counter ranged situationally. Melee can counter ranged in melee range but then that is melee vs melee (with minor advantage to pure melee against ranged player). Melee and cav damage is situational, while ranged counters everything while ranged, and also can counter cav or melee in melee range. Its like ranged can choose to be either Rock or Paper at will if we are to go along with a simplistic rock/paper/scissors design. Ranged hard counters everything

So yeah its more complicated and it should be. Its all about balance and counters, whats fun to play and rewarding player skill were possible

[LastKaze]

So my analysis on crossbows, since playing crossbowman 2 gens ago, I have to say that atm xbows are still kinda op, if you can sit back from a fight and pop some bolts into people why complain about running away, maybe if you stop playing crossbow for a gen and go melee, you might actually feel why xbow had to be nerfed, and even with the weight increase, xbows still do a lot of damage. Don't know why your complaining about the weight increase at all, maybe it's because your one of those pussies that like to run away from a fight, reload your crossbow then shoot the guy as he is running at you with his sword.

p.s I've been a crossbowman for 23 of my 25 gens.

[Rumblood]

You can make a proper archer with a few stats in melee easily, you just choose to stack athletics to the max.

No, you can't make a proper archer. You can make a toon that can use a bow, but not hit the broadside of a barn, plus kinda melee with your 1 hander unless you come up against a pure melee build. Or you can take a 1h + shield/2 hander and cut your arrow supply in half and still not be able to hit a barn.

Or you can be an actual archer that hits what they aim for, with 1wpf in either a 1 hander, or a really gimp 0 slot 1 hander.

Get real 

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

No, you can't make a proper archer. You can make a toon that can use a bow, but not hit the broadside of a barn, plus kinda melee with your 1 hander unless you come up against a pure melee build. Or you can take a 1h + shield/2 hander and cut your arrow supply in half and still not be able to hit a barn.

Or you can be an actual archer that hits what they aim for, with 1wpf in either a 1 hander, or a really gimp 0 slot 1 hander.

Get real 

It's funny 'cause this is bullshit.

[Rumblood]

It's funny 'cause this is bullshit.

What's funny is your bullshit idea of what constitutes an proper archer.