The ranking system is too unfriendly to new players

[Arkonor]

I decided to start over with a new main after 1000 hours of play and now have no MW items and the difference is staggering.

The extra 8 armor you get from gloves and body armor is like the difference from low medium armor and heavy armor. You can take about half the hits you could before.
Also the bows and crossbows which you would think are friendly to new players are almost useless without having them ranked up.

Examples:
Light Crossbow does 52 pierce total with Steel Bolts.
MW Light Crossbow does 65 piece total with MW steel bolts.

This makes them do about 13 more pure damage since armor had already been counted.

I really like the ranking system but the difference to me seems too great on certain items. Ranged and armors being VERY noticeable. New players are "forced" to use the more advanced weapons with high damage output by default to be able to do decent damage and are pushed away from all ranged items. This makes the game frustrating for them since they seem to be way worse players then they might actually be.

Fixing it would be simple. Upping the normal items and lowering the difference from ranking them up.

My 2 cents.
Arkonor

[Aiyasha]

Also the bows and crossbows which you would think are friendly to new players are almost useless without having them ranked up.

This is actually one of the bigger problems with the constant mindless archery nerfs. A LOT of the players that can rack up kills with bows have them fully loomed because it takes a long time to learn to reliably land shots past ten feet in front of you.

[Gurnisson]

I remember suggesting only increasing accuracy, draw rate and missile speed for the ranged weapons, and only quiver size of bolts/arrows (past the number it is now) instead of the damage increase. Adjust the damage of the bows/xbows to somewhere around loomed damage now, a tad lower maybe. It would help newer players, but still not remove the purpose of looming ranged gear.

[Teeth]

Just remove looms. What is the point if having them if everyone has them, except the new players who are at a huge skill and level disadvantage anyway. The only thing looms do is restrict us all in what we can play, if I want to play a Spanish buckler man today and a Viking axeman tomorrow. I can't because I need to trade for a few weeks to get the stuff.

Free freedom, remove looms.

[Grumbs]

Just remove looms. What is the point if having them if everyone has them, except the new players who are at a huge skill and level disadvantage anyway. The only thing looms do is restrict us all in what we can play, if I want to play a Spanish buckler man today and a Viking axeman tomorrow. I can't because I need to trade for a few weeks to get the stuff.

Free freedom, remove looms.

I've thought of this, but the truth is certain people would lose their sense of progression and long term goals. I like having an economical element to the game, with the marketplace and sense of overall wealth.  I quite like how people specialise into a certain role too.

I would rather just nerf looms and buff rank 0 stuff to compensate. Then nerf ranged just because why not.

[[ptx]]

Don't forget how important loom ranks are for 1h weapons too. Or basically any weapon with relatively low  base damage. The impact from looms is quite uneven between various different items. And yeah, it can be stupidly huge in some cases.

[Fuma Kotaro]

Looms are fine in my opinion
for example in 2010 the extra points you got were insanely high they already nerfed it to an acceptable bonus and any other nerfs are not necessary in my opinion
what about those high gen players which invested thousands of hours to get stuff loomed?
if you are new you have to accept it and try to do good
(On my stf without looms I can still do very good even as archer)

[LordRichrich]

It really isn't.

I've played for 2.5 yrs + and my play time well exceeds 2000 hours (can't tell exactly as steam doesn't register me playing WB through cRPG anymore)
Only had a +3 for a few weeks, thought meh. I use non-loomed gear 99% of the time, unless there's something in the armoury I wanna try.
I started playing a little before upkeep etc, when leveling and gold was slow as hell.
I make new characters all the time, I don't find it bad.

Maybe you're just used to loom crutching? It's different I grant you, with no exp bonus and no looms, but it isn't difficult.

[no_rules_just_play]

you are talking about the +8 bonus wich is too 'OP'. but as you said: 1000 hours of playing. 2 +3's are 6 gens of playing. it would be kinda worthless if you did 6 gens for +2 body armor. right? if you remove looms you will get huge lvl crutchers too. and you take away the spirit of the game where everyone is unique because they use different weapons.

[Kuujis]

I would actually give HUGE applause for implementing some kind of "improve one stat and diminish other" approach for looms. Then compensate all loom item owners with these new looms and replace all looms with virgin copies of orig items. And let the experimenting begin!

OFC - easier said, than done...

[Vibe]

I think it's the worst with ranged - a non loomed archer will have a much harder time than a loomed archer, especially against someone with loomed body armor. I just laugh at how many arrows it takes for my 15/24 loomless HA to kill something

[no_rules_just_play]

I think it's the worst with ranged - a non loomed archer will have a much harder time than a loomed archer, especially against someone with loomed body armor. I just laugh at how many arrows it takes for my 15/24 loomless HA to kill something

indeed, low lvl ranged and horse ranged without looms are quite useless. especially with archery

[bavvoz]

If looms were removed no1 would retire so new players would be screwed against all lvl 35+ anyways.

[Necrorave]

I decided to start over with a new main after 1000 hours of play and now have no MW items and the difference is staggering.

In all honesty, I have been playing Crpg for I would say almost 2 years now.  I am still only Gen 3 with only a +1 loom.  (Because I respec like a fiend)

I know Looms do make a change in gameplay, although I never thought of it as major enough to make it priority to finish a gen for a loom.  I play, I do well with stock items, I have fun.

I think the ranking system is completely fair as it is.  Although, I still think a wooden dagger should get +10 blunt damage at Elder rank.

[Joseph Porta]

I do fine without looms, only items worth looming imo are horses, shields and ranged items, sure it takes one, two, three, four or five hits more to kill a loomed player but hey, thats not too bad.