Lobbyism

[Gurnisson]

Please can you name me some pros that  polearm class has over 2h class??

Versatility (pikes, hoplite, lance etc.)

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And that goddamn glaive...

[Falka]

Oh, you had 999 Renown, congrats on becoming a "king".

He should be "Queen" 

[Grumpy_Nic]

What you think is the reason why most people accused of lobbyism come from ranks of shieldless infantry?

The way I see it there are many rageposts from shieldless infantry. I kind of understand that they are frustrated sometimes when a large number of ranged is on the servers.
But I am pretty sure that shieldless infantry does not see its own weakness, or does not want to accept it which leads to a lot of QQ, or lobbyism. I hate all these shitthreads, whoever might create them. If you choose your class you need to know where its limits are, sometimes you can break them and at the end of the round you'll be awarded with a multi, maybe valour and several "GJ" from your teammates. But most of the times you will not and you will not make the game better if you go to the forum and post QQ threads where you point out how OP other classes are that you have no idea of.

[Haboe]

2 Handers and polearms fight face to face. They define their own skill by surviving a fight with an other player. If they get shot before they actually fight that player they see it as an unfair loss.

Those players define skill the wrong way, cause the skill of being pro in battle or siege is survival, not only vs melee, but also vs ranged.
If you get shot that means you are at the wrong location, and your battle awareness isn't perfect.

Therefore they often get pissed and blaim OP ranged for it.

[GuiKa]

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I can tell you. But it is a difficult matter, which will lead to a wall of text, but you asked for it, so don't complain.


In cRPG we have three basic classes (="metaclasses"): Infantry, Ranged and Cavalry.

On battle mode, we are fighting as teams, which means there are other players fighting with us against a similar number of enemies. This already changes quite a lot, compared to a pure 1vs.1 situation. Your teammates have an impact on your gameplay.

For example, cavalry helps each other out by distracting the enemy. Sometimes, when I spawned late with my pikeman, I got killed by cavalry. Usually a pike makes you invulnerable towards melee cavalry, but when there are three or more of them, you can't keep track of all of them, and sooner or later one of them will see and use the chance to backstab you. This happens quite automatically, because as cavalry you are pressing W constantly and are riding around, clicking whenever there is an opportunity to attack.

Archers, on the other hand, usually tend to choose good shooting positions, and somehow instinctively stick together. As a map usually has only few good shooting positions, you find a lot of archers there. The thing with archers is, that they support each other exponentially. Which means that every archer more supports all the other archers equally. The more archers there are already, the more archers the additional archer will support, which means the overall support delivered by every additional archer becomes bigger and bigger = exponential. You can see it very well in strategy games. If you reach a certain amount of Space Marines, they can kill an endless amount of charging Zerg.

Now let's see infantry. Infantry can support each other only to a very limited extend. You can be supported in melee only by three or four teammates at the most, given that two of them are pikemen, for example. Additional infantrymen won't help you, as they don't have that radius of action to support you. And in difference to ranged and cavalry, the differences within the infantry meta-class are quite drastic! There are shieldmen, hoplites, pikemen, twohanders and crushthrough infantry, to name only the most important classes. compared to the cavalry and ranged metaclasses their gameplay differs quite radically. While all cavalry and all ranged share the same strengthes and weaknesses, infantry depends much more on teamplay than other classes. You need a shieldman to be protected from ranged, and you need a pikeman to be protected from cavalry. And then you need a two hander or something like that to dish out some damage.

So basically we can say, that infantry has the POTENTIAL to not be countered by anything, but counter everything themselves, but on the other hand it has the REQUIREMENT of tactics and teamplay to do so, which the other metaclasses do not have, at least not to that extend. Which means, that playing infantry always requires more brain (overview, planning, tactics, discipline, etc.) than playing the other classes.

Next to that basic difference of infantry compared to cav and ranged, there is another aspect, which is linked somehow: infantry is the "reacting" class, while cavalry and archers are rather "acting" classes. This has to do with the rather barely measurable aspect of "flexibility" of the different classes. I would say the main element of that flexibility is the choice of your target. Due to the high speed of their horses and the long range of their bows/crossbows, cavalry and archers are able to pick their targets, and usually you pick those which are easy ones. Infantry doesn't have the chance to pick easy cavalry or archer targets very often. It happens only when the cavalry or archers are very unaware, which is definitely less likely than being surprised by a rider or hit by an arrow in the middle of the battlefield. Another aspect is being able to evade enemy attacks, which infantry can't do much about, except of always facing attacking cavalry or dodging/blocking incoming projectiles (with a shield). Or hiding at a safe spot and being basically useless and experiencing a rather boring game, limited to watching the (usually ugly) textures of some rock, tree or ruins.

Edit: also the time you actually fight matters. When the round starts, cavalry spurs their horses and shortly after is already stabbing at targets, until they get downed, if at all. Archers start, run a rather short distance until they find a good position and start shooting. They shoot until they need to displace, and even while displacing they can shoot and keep on fighting, at least if they have a little bit foresight and move in time (so they don't need to actually run away). Infantry gameplay consists mainly of running after targets and checking the surroundings, while the actual melee fights don't occupy that much of their playtime. At least less compared to cavalry and archers.

This leads to the situation where infantry is actually all the time in danger and needs awareness all the time, whereas cavalry and archers can very well estimate when they are rather safe and when not. This leads to the impression of infantry, being somehow the "cannonfodder" or the "fool" on the battlefield. They are limited to the choice of targets which AGREE to be attacked by infantry, which was especially obvious before the kiting nerf. Together with the inability of infantry, to attack and kill certain classes (especially ranged cavalry), which unfortnately is the goal of the game, this leads to regular frustration for infantry players.

All those problems which I mentioned were more or less only adressed by balance tweaks, usually in form of stat nerfs for ranged and cavalry classes. But stats don't change anything on the problems I mentioned above, cavalry can still pick their targets, archers are still able to shoot over distance, and infantry is still limited to reacting instead of acting.

If you ask me for a solution, I can only repeat the solution I came up with long time ago: change battle more to conquest mode! Infantry would have a new task which would be much better accomplishable, because it is easier for infantry to conquer and hold terrain instead of catching and killing a horse archer. Next to this it would give infantry some kind of common focus, instead of that blurry goal of killing all enemies, leading to infantry scattering all over the place in the desperate attempt to turn their reacting into acting.

If something is unclear, please ask by rephrasing what you understood, instead of flaming me instantly and wasting a lot of time to write something I probably agree with. In any case I can say that I did not want to give any evaluation about any class, the skill needed to play it or their justification in the game. I just wanted to point out the differences in gameplay for those classes.

/Thread

[Macropus]

The problem with lobbysm is people being arrogant and ignorant. And [insert +100 bad words here cuz my english is bad and whatever]. They only recognize the kind of skill that is nessessary for playing their class.
For example, twohanders' definition of skill is manual blocking, shielders' - being able to fight in clusterfuck, archers' - shooting & positioning and so on. They just don't want to understand another classes and to realize that the game is not only about their class.
That's silly.
Every balance discussions converts into senseless posts like "I was killed today by a spearman with 2 hits, and therefore they're OP" without logic and without stating huge speedbonus or others 9000+ factors that affect damage.

PS: I never rage about game, instead I rage about dumb people  , sorry for that.
And yet most of you guys are cool.

[Templar_Ratigan]

Easy really. Cause getting stabbed in the face by a 2hhero isnt half as maddening as getting shot by some dude 500 times, who you know you can rip to shreads in less than 1second if you could catch him, but you cant.

Here lies the problem. What frustrates people is completely individual to them, true people may experience frustration over the same elements and come together to agree on the same issues in game, but that's just a series of subjective experiences masquerading as an objective fact.

From what ive observed the main problem is with peoples expectations. Too many times have I heard lines such as the one above 'Oh if I could catch him I could kill him' or 'Well if hadn't used X weapon I would not have died'.

The truth is that no one 'deserves' a kill, (unless perhaps they were in a melee/ranged fight with someone and they landed many more hits than the other but still died and even then that's just me being facetious), you earn your kills.

If someone is faster than you and is abusing this to run away and shoot you, tough monkey balls, his build counters yours in that context, but this would have to be the context of open ground. Otherwise there are other factors, such as the ground's height level, your armour and his damage, your ability to dodge with efficiency, is there any cover to hide behind or ignore him for a bit or bait such an individual with?

But should the person playing the archer HAVE to take the same risks as a melee player in that context? He's building a ranged character, isn't shooting you what he has set out to do? If a melee character is close to an archer that archer is usually dead and if said archer is skilled enough to block, attack and maybe even kill in melee with the little toothpick of a weapon that most of them have to use, surely that is a factor in favour of the archer's melee abilities too?

But then people claim that ranged characters don't have to possess the same level of skill as melee players, I see a contradiction there. After all melee isn't only skilled when melee-only characters do it, is it?

By the way i'm not saying this is your argument or mentality, but I thought they were points worth raising in general using your quote as a kick-starter.

Most of this can be alleviated by changing the expectation. In other words, don't 'expect to win' or 'expect to get a kill', instead expect that anything positive or bad can potentially happen and then gauge your position within that instant as best you can, but do not feel frustrated if said action did not produce the result you expected.

Although we are all guilty of this, myself included, it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be tried.  It's much easier to blame others than blame yourself.

Bearing in mind I play a really really fucking slow and awkward build and I spend most of my time being shot, especially on Eu 1. So I understand the frustration and ive certainly been known to go 'fucking archers' when being shot to pieces, but this is not something I carry with me in my mentality. So it does not poison the perspective I have of being considerate to another's position.

There is an issue of team balance however but this is a more difficult issue since it would be imposing restrictions on people merely for the choices they make in a game about choices. Until such a time as I log in and see the words 'Class - Archer' or 'Class - Two-hander' I do not see the relevancy of implying groupings where there are none.

True it is easier for the human brain to create groups out of random information and for the most part I don't see anything wrong with calling most bow users archers or most two handed weapon users Two-handers. But These are just simplifying terms.

It's important to remember that we don't actually have classes yet and i'm not arguing semantics here i'm actually arguing against the restrictive nature and mindset of those terms, which seem to imply an inherency in their existence that does not in fact...exist.

I'm just wary of where this module is heading in regards to such prolific opinions, not that they are wrong, only that there is always another angle to consider and I would never wish to see this game chopped up into a series of set rules and angles which would only serve to go full circle and make this mod into a poor parody of native.

[Prpavi]

I actually think we need more ranged, you can still partially see the sun through the arrows, the sky need to be completley covered for me to be satisfied.

Also killstreak Arrowrain!

[highglandeur]

Fucking 2handers always crying, it's all over the forum.
Never seen poleplayers crying about polenerf, never seen an archer crying bout nerf or ghost arrow or whatever, never seen anyone crying that 2h is OP and lolstab should be removed.
Why is it that only those fucking 2 handers are spamming the forum with their QQ, fucking nubs!

Pavi is right, in medieval time arrows would pour from the sky dealing massive death like a radioactive acid rain.
Buff archery and force respec all those 2h nubs to archer!!!!

[MlotekPL]

Viva Che Panosa! Save us from theses ******* 2h capitalists !

[rufio]

Please can you name me some pros that  polearm class has over 2h class??

ballanced shieldbreaking, rightwing of doom, higher weaponstun chances overall, more versatile. glaive.

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

ballanced shieldbreaking *Stop being stupid, 2h got that*, rightwing of doom *Yeah, poor 2h, only got every animation of doom (-the overhead), and if you use the flameberge you get the polearm rightswing*, higher weaponstun chances overall *Unless there is some formula that gives poles a higher chance (which there very well might be) then they don't beat 2hs by a real amount anyways*, more versatile *bullshit, 2h got just as much versatility as poles got if not more*. glaive *yeah, poor 2h, they only got every amazingly broken 2h sword out there, what shall they do against a glaive? Certainly not outreach it with a stab or just fight them normally, no, it is impossible to fight a glaive without getting kicked and it is such a great weapon!*.

Also, Leshma, if people are really lobbying for unfair advantages and knowing it is unfair then they're really shit at lobbying, most people actually believe the thing they're using is extremely underpowered, and find it uncomprehendable that anyone disagrees.

[Tyr_]

Archers, on the other hand, usually tend to choose good shooting positions, and somehow instinctively stick together. As a map usually has only few good shooting positions, you find a lot of archers there. The thing with archers is, that they support each other exponentially. Which means that every archer more supports all the other archers equally. The more archers there are already, the more archers the additional archer will support, which means the overall support delivered by every additional archer becomes bigger and bigger = exponential. You can see it very well in strategy games. If you reach a certain amount of Space Marines, they can kill an endless amount of charging Zerg.

Easy Solution, Add Colossi and Infestors.

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Also, bad archers are giving support to good archers by distracting enemies, landing random shots and, once they are dead, giving more arrows to the good archers, while bad infantry player die in the first seconds of melee combat (if the manage to reach the fight before getting shot/lanced), and if not there is a high risk that they teamhit and/or block their allies hits, standing in the way, etc...

Ps: German Greatsword is still the King of all two handers, no matter what this rage-respeccers say!

[Tydeus]

If you get shot that means you are at the wrong location, and your battle awareness isn't perfect.

I like how you casually state that if someone gets shot, it was only because they screwed up. As if that were anywhere remotely close to the truth. As if a dedicated two-hander or polearm player can somehow be expected to find cover with our map rotation, every round, from beginning to end all while actively participating in the round. Explain to me how you're supposed to do this on Random Plains maps.

[rufio]

zlisch witch 2hander is ballanced and has shieldbreak ?? u mean the 1hander that can convert to 2 hander? im perplexed