Just saying it now as ppl may understand it wrong, I'm thankful for all the work on crpg and all the progress. just trying to give directions what could be done but it's all just my opinion.
Crpg is like a lawn. Once it was created/seeded it started growing more or less evenly. After that it was cut here and there, where it needed to be cut. But with the time as the sun has been shining on the lawn and burning it and as dogs have been peeing and shitting on it, it became uneven lawn that whole needs to be cut (adjusted), needs fertilising (good changes) and watering (respec to everyone so the changes can work for the community) and it will grow even again.
basically:
- ranged damage and builds
- knockdown
- upkeep balance
- weapon requirements
- wpf changing
- marketplace could be exchanged by loom respec with like 4 weeks cooldown
- weapon balance - heavy lance, awlpike etc.
- cav bump being pitifully weak on destrier-like horses
- faster leveling up - think about alts
- exp system being based 2 much on winning
- banner balance taking class balance more into account
- defensive playstyle >> offensive playstyle
- kicks -.-
- battle maps
---- free respec to erryone in the first week after patch, so you can see what got changed and adapt your build. Also patchmaking requires balls. You can't fix something without changes and changes affect players. Some will be affected more and some less. Life is not fair but thinking about it shouldn't stop us from repairing the mod.
Story about the boat below
Once you build a small boat and you see you have to go through the ocean and your boat is 2 small you simply add bigger parts and expand your ship (you fix problems). You expand this and that. then you notice your first project has parts (mentioned above) that are disturbing in proceeding with your boat development . Unnecessary walls (balance etc.) and all the wooden shiet (ranged req) that is left from the prototype (2 years ago) is disturbing but removing it would sink the boat (ranged quit). Those things are obligatory. Then you should think about it and analyze it if what you have learnt from the first boat and the upgrades couldn't be used in builing a totally new boat. New boat built with the experience you have obtained and shiet from the last 3 years of upgrading. New boat will be way better because it won't have all the flaws that stayed from the 3-years-ago-prototype till now.
Not talking about the reset. Talking about changing and balancing like:
archer builds don't need heavy arrows and heavy bows in order not to kite. They need PD dmg bonus change from 14% to like 9% and the significant decrease in WPF penalty from each 1PD. In this way we will have archers with new different builds. Allowing archers to go faster 6PD build and hard-hitting 10PD, but slow. 30 minutes of WPF balancing and maths and both archer kinds will be accurate but different increasing variety in game and removing bullshit 10kg arrows.
Also instead of str req on weapons we could use PS req.
When it comes to crossbowmen it's mostly about the arba and other xbow req as well. Huge power able to kill a rider in 1 shot or deal very high damage to the infantry should be followed by high strength.
What I'm saying here is a raw material that lacks thorough thinking. 1-cRPG-part working as intended should lead to balancing the 2nd part that would match the 1st part. Then the 3rd part should come and everything should be balanced together not like this time we change this or this time we change that. it leads to strong differences between 1st and 5th part.
Mod has changed and playerbase improved and skill went up and mod and balance have to follow the other changes. Balancing a melee+ranged game isn't an easy task.
Also gangbang became a new indicator of best players. Player that knows where to be at the proper time is the best player simply by attending slaughter of outnumbered enemies. Cav became a stealthy-killer as going 1vs1 is very deadly for cav.
Armour isn't worth it's weight as pierce damage is super-supreme, heavy horses are beautiful but still get reared up by glances of red-tasel-spear-hoplites who just turned around and glance-stabbed a horseman that was 0,5m away.
Knockdown is fucked up still. Should be a feature not a primary use of a weapon ffs! Would be a good change for strat as well.
mod isn't dead but it sooner or later will be if we just get more and more cases to fix and less fixes. We have a dev team (Tyd+Paul) that's doing something and know how to change things but we also need people who know what to change and who knoew what the issues are.