My suggestion: Fire the balance team, get a new one.

[dontgothere]

I've been playing CRPG since nearly the beginning, back when its webpage was black and white with a row of the names of those who had donated. I've seen all the changes and there was a point where the mod peaked and then a crucial turning point started the decline: instead of focusing on fixing glitches, adding content and tweaking game modes, the developers decided to embark on this wild series of erratic nerfs, a lot of which they had to quickly revise or drop entirely.

It's just silly. The player population is getting smaller while the gameplay is becoming increasingly restrictive. There are still all kinds of weird little bugs and inconsistencies that have gotten absolutely no attention despite numerous threads. The developers' priorities are inscrutable but apparently wrong. Programming a big mod isn't easy of course, it's hard and there are going to be problems and all the players are thankful the mod exists in the first place, but that doesn't change the facts. It would all be so much better if their focus was on the mod's real problems instead of these bizarre alterations that nobody outside of a small clique want to see implemented.

I just get the feeling that this whole mod was at some point derailed by a crew of people (I don't know who exactly) who are bent on enforcing limitations that degrade, slow-down, de-skill and remove diversity. All that was most fun about CRPG is disappearing, and what replaces it is a LARPing simulator, heavily biased for Strategus play, with only a few truly viable builds possible.

The balance crew is unaccountable, doesn't dialogue on the forum by responding to feedback, and doesn't even any longer post the changes they make. It's like a takeover to make CRPG just as boring as the other, non-Warband melee games out now.

[Panos]

ADD NEW ARMORS!

[Phew]

All it would take (for weapons) is to decide on a single "fitness parameter" that is a function of length/damage/speed/weight/damage type/cost/attack directions, and make every weapon have the same fitness parameter.

Personally, I think the fitness parameter should be "damage flux". Start by calculating the reach for each attack direction (including animation bonus/penalty). Then multiply the reach of each attack direction by the average damage of that attack on say 50 armor (if a weapon lacks a certain attack direction, set the reach/damage to some minimal values like 50cm/25 cut). Multiply each one of these products by the speed, and by speed, I mean attacks/minute by an average player (130ish wpf), not the stated speed value. Sum these values. Next, apply correction factors for various attributes. Say a weapon has a 15% knockdown chance, that's a 15% bonus to the fitness parameter. Unbalanced? a 10% penalty. Secondary mode? 5% bonus. Bonus against shields? 10% bonus. Useable with shield? 20% bonus. Etc.

Obviously, the exact values for each of the correction factors would be up for debate, but at least we'd have a systematic approach to balance weapon stats.

That's how I'd do it if I was in charge of weapon balance. But I'm an engineer, and we do things systematically and logically.

[Paul]

Afaik new items have been added at least a month ago, including kebab remover's armor. Just waiting for patch. So go spam chadz.

I'm an engineer too. The "fitness" parameter thing was one of the firsts things I scratched because it just doesn't work out and is beated by stats given "so it feels right" by a mile. Fuzzy logic.

[Phew]

I'm an engineer too. The "fitness" parameter thing was one of the firsts things I scratched because it just doesn't work out and is beated by stats given "so it feels right" by a mile. Fuzzy logic.

Adjust the bonus/penalty factors until you get results that "feel right" then. The lack of a systematic fitness parameter in weapon stat balancing is why we have dogs like the Falchion, Shaska, Arabian Arming Sword, etc. No weapon should just be flat worse than another option, every choice should have pros/cons.

[Rainbow]

How about we avoid general phrases and give us some examples you jack in the box.  Yeeeeeeesh.

You haven't even suggested anything.  I could sum it all up in two sentences.  It used to be better.  Make it better. 

[Phew]

How about we avoid general phrases and give us some examples you jack in the box.  Yeeeeeeesh.

You haven't even suggested anything.  I could sum it all up in two sentences.  It used to be better.  Make it better.

Artie is super pissed about two things;

1. He's 1 wpf away from being able to support 13 power throw, even with all his wpf invested in throwing (and naked). And he has to earn like 75 mil more XP to get that 1 wpf
2. Jump throwing (a staple of his playstyle) has been removed on some servers

I feel for him on #1, even though he still 1-2 shots everyone whether he has 12 or 13 power throw. 
#2, well, there's a reason baseball players/football plant their feet before they throw.

[Kafein]

A single fitness parameter cannot represent the complex relations that exist between the stats themselves, the non-linearity of their usefulness, unquantifiable stats (animations ?) and variations between players/teams/gamemodes/maps. Actually it could but if it did it would be so complicated we simply wouldn't be able to create it in the first place.


I would rather try something like a facemash-like study, comparing two items at a time and asking the player to select which one is the best.

[Tzar]

Only nerf i want reverted is the turn rate nerf. Also maybe the soak values since wearing heavy armor just seems pointless beyond good looks.

Otherwise they made some really nice improvements to the gameplay. 

GJ devs. 

But for god sake some of the changes like the turn rate nerf that everyone wants removed should be done. Its wouldnt hurt to listen to the community on this one.

[Phew]

A single fitness parameter cannot represent the complex relations that exist between the stats themselves, the non-linearity of their usefulness, unquantifiable stats (animations ?) and variations between players/teams/gamemodes/maps. Actually it could but if it did it would be so complicated we simply wouldn't be able to create it in the first place.


I would rather try something like a facemash-like study, comparing two items at a time and asking the player to select which one is the best.

It's a video game. Everything in it is already quantified, down to the 1s and 0s. Everything about the animations is quantifiable: delays, reaches, sweetspots, etc. And yes, the equation for fitness parameter would be complicated, but every day engineers develop fitness parameters for much more complex systems, where everything boils down to a single number. Even crap games like WoW boiled every item down to an "item level" that was just a weighted sum of its attributes.

Pick a subset of weapons that everyone agrees are mostly balanced with each other (say the most popular weapons in each category; Longsword, Poleaxe, Nordic Champ Sword, etc), and use them to tune your parameters (i.e. make sure these 3 items have about the same fitness). Use server statistics also; if a lot of the kills are from crushthough, then obviously crushthrough is a powerful attribute that should be weighted upwards. If no one is getting kills from 1h thrust, then obviously 1h thrust is sh!t and shouldn't be weighted very heavily. You get the idea.

The end result of this will probably be weak weapons (like the aforementioned Arabian Guard Sword) getting buffed, not popular weapons getting nerfed. Since the top-tier weapons in each category are mostly well-balanced with each other.

[EponiCo]

Such a function already exists. I'm not really seeing the advantage of making up another one, just to adjust it until you get the values you want when you can just enter the values you want manually.

What would be very helpful though, if you could make up a function that calculates the ugliness index of items. I don't really understand it, but I'm really hopeful as they are made up of 1s and 0s also, I think?

[Haboe]

Criticizing the guys that make this mod possible is ok, keeps them on their toes...

Suggesting to fire those who put a lot of their time into making it possible for you to play this mod...
Turn off your pc, pull out all the cables and trow it out of your window please... Would you do that for me?

[cmp]

It's a video game. Everything in it is already quantified, down to the 1s and 0s. Everything about the animations is quantifiable: delays, reaches, sweetspots, etc. And yes, the equation for fitness parameter would be complicated, but every day engineers develop fitness parameters for much more complex systems, where everything boils down to a single number.

You're wrong and there's an easy way to show it: try to come up with this function.

[owens]

^Tru dat

[Tydeus]

Such a system cannot possibly account for meta-game changes and would therefore be no better than the current system. A fitness parameter would be a decent balance guideline, but could never be the sole solution.