Time to end the range whine.

[TR_Ragnarok]

I think throwing should be a more of a concern than archery imo. 
Sorry xeen, chucky, and of course artie.

[Mokou]

I've never understood why there is so much hate towards archers, but little towards the more easier class of crossbow? Possibly an NA/EU difference in ranged makeup?

I'd say it's because a lot of crossbow users are either A) Hybrid, who go into melee or B) Stupidly good at what they do, like Conqueef and Phantasmal.
Whereas a LOT of the archers (at least on NA) are pretty awful, and can't melee, and it's pretty frustrating to get picked off from afar by someone a lot worse than you with no chance to fight back, simply because they got lucky, or you moved the wrong way and walked into the arrow, or they carry so many arrows that being hit is just an inevitability.

It's basically the difference between being beat in, say, Halo, by a professional player who just guns you down with normal weapons, and being killed by a ten year old using a sniper rifle on the other side of the map, who took ten shots to kill you because he's not very good at the game.

[TR_Ragnarok]

I'd say it's because a lot of crossbow users are either A) Hybrid, who go into melee or B) Stupidly good at what they do, like Conqueef and Phantasmal.
Whereas a LOT of the archers (at least on NA) are pretty awful, and can't melee, and it's pretty frustrating to get picked off from afar by someone a lot worse than you with no chance to fight back, simply because they got lucky, or you moved the wrong way and walked into the arrow, or they carry so many arrows that being hit is just an inevitability.

Which is why we cant just nerf something, just because a group of people are bending us over us every round.

I'm sure the balancers know what they are doing despite the backlash from the community.

[kinngrimm]

First of all i wanna say, that i really hate archers, its the only ranged class i hate cause of the amount of dmg and havoc they can wreck with bodkin arrows the amount of arrows they carry an their fast little bows.

... blabla doesnt matter bla ...

Re: Time to end the range whine.

fuck that shit, no deal.

Fucking kiting prick today on eu1 , made me and 2 others follow him for 2 minutes.
I have 10 ath, that dude droped all his shit and just trolled us by running away.

Guess what, in the end a gank group came over us, and while sorrounded by 5 enemy melee i got shot ... which is the usual way to die on eu1.(there are endless similar stories, thats why i stopped playing on eu1 in general a while ago)

new rules
"whenever i get shot by friendly ranged, crtl+M" and Panos rule also will come into effect "no support for friendly ranged you fucks are on your own now"
Perhaps i can grieve these fucking cunts out of the game as they do nothing less, is this what the devs wanted , so be it.

[Leshma]

It's funny how many times when surrounded by enemies, you get killed by ranged. Happened to me a lot.

These days I'm my old friendchering and despite being an awful shooter (only managed to headshot kinngrimm, which was result of pure luck and nothing else) somehow, every time I choose to be a prick and shoot in melee, I always kill that poor bastard surrounded by friendly players.

Feeling every single nerf on my skin, mostly useless nerfs. You can't nerf archery. I got killed many, many times today. Yet, I've kept playing for that special moment when Lady Luck will look down on me and grant me that sweet headshot on extraordinary dangerous enemy such as kinngrimm or some elite macro twohander, or even enemy bastard archer who can't miss. Playing low level archery in cRPG takes skill and survival instinct and that's what makes it fun for some people.

Also point system is the biggest joke ever. Killed four guys with bow, got like 15 points... then went into melee with a club, 0 ps and 1 wpf. Finished with 20 points from melee only. After I picked up something decent and masterworked I scored some kills as melee (with 0 PS), and obtained more points than I would ever as an archer.

Even picking any type of crossbow grants me more kills than shooting with a bow. That's because bolts are much faster, more damaging and fly straight unlike arrows...

Again, you can't nerf archery. You can only remove bows.

[San]

I'd say it's because a lot of crossbow users are either A) Hybrid, who go into melee or B) Stupidly good at what they do, like Conqueef and Phantasmal.
Whereas a LOT of the archers (at least on NA) are pretty awful, and can't melee, and it's pretty frustrating to get picked off from afar by someone a lot worse than you with no chance to fight back, simply because they got lucky, or you moved the wrong way and walked into the arrow, or they carry so many arrows that being hit is just an inevitability.

It's basically the difference between being beat in, say, Halo, by a professional player who just guns you down with normal weapons, and being killed by a ten year old using a sniper rifle on the other side of the map, who took ten shots to kill you because he's not very good at the game.

All of the struggling archers find themselves doing better with xbow, and there are just more awesome and good-great xbowers around. And that's without a lot of the old Chaos/Remnant/Silveredge old xbow players that are barely on/not playing.

For archers, NA doesn't have much great outside of Vick, Robin_Longstride, Flying_Dildos, Ivana, Les, and.. uh... there was another 1 or 2 but I forget, that's how bad it is (then there's the occasional all-around great player that decides to try out archery for a while, a lot of the SS/Jabonra guys). Some of those guys aren't even on that often, so you never have to deal with much more than 1 or 2 great archers on NA at a time, but getting arbed at any point is still incredibly dangerous.

Tons of great old Hospitaller, BRD, and Fallen archers either don't play archery anymore or just simply don't play.

As a shielder, archers are the easiest to deal with, especially if there are teammates alive to split some of the focus away.

[Rumblood]

Re: Time to end the range whine.

fuck that shit, no deal.

Fucking kiting prick today on eu1 , made me and 2 others follow him for 2 minutes.
I have 10 ath, that dude droped all his shit and just trolled us by running away.

Guess what, in the end a gank group came over us, and while sorrounded by 5 enemy melee i got shot ... which is the usual way to die on eu1.(there are endless similar stories, thats why i stopped playing on eu1 in general a while ago)

new rules
"whenever i get shot by friendly ranged, crtl+M" and Panos rule also will come into effect "no support for friendly ranged you fucks are on your own now"
Perhaps i can grieve these fucking cunts out of the game as they do nothing less, is this what the devs wanted , so be it.

An archer kited you for two minutes and now you won't support your team archer? Well you weren't supporting them in the first place or that archer would have been dead and not kiting you around. So nothing changing is it?

[UnholyRolyPoly]

I've never understood why there is so much hate towards archers, but little towards the more easier class of crossbow? Possibly an NA/EU difference in ranged makeup?

IMO it's a tactical difference between the two servers.  Na is all about two epic blobs of inf charging each other.  There isn't as much time for archers to pepper the infantry because there is only a momentary conflict.  The clash generally happens dead center of the map so there isn't (as) often a terrain advantage from a ranged perspective.  The winner of the field battle mops up range.  (Coincidentally it's also why you have more throwers on NA than EU.  Throwers break up the infantry formation.)  Because of the nature of each server from a tactical/terrain perspective NA archers might get off 1/2 the number of arrows as their EU counterparts.  I wouldn't even be surprised if that number was 1/3 on average.  That's why very few NA archers have developed into top end ranged players.  Archery is simply not as effective on NA1 because the inf is far more cohesive.  Obviously there are maps which favor ranged, cav, or inf on both servers.  But because the infantry of the winning army is generally in a tighter formation (thus allowing them to beat the enemy inf) they tend to roll the remaining archers quite easily.  I know shooting into a blob Seems like easy pickings for archers but agi shielders tend to wind up at the front of that blob and totally negate any ranged opportunities to kill the remaining infantry.  Therefore archers on NA1 tend to spread out and camp a bit more than EU1.  They do not generally work together.  It's VERY rare to see a group of three archers actually working together on NA1 but it's nothing to see a group of 5-7 on EU1 actually firing in formation thus increasing their effectiveness.  I think it's simply a different mindset between the two regions.  NA players are always looking for a direct fight.  We always want to be in the battle line.  EU players tend to flank and pull more often.  It's not to say there is no battle line in EU or than NA players do not flank.  This is just a general difference which holds true more often than not. 

BTW...  I often find myself frustrated on EU1.... not because of the archers.... but because I cannot get my team to work together to overcome the archers. 

[Prpavi]

Re: Time to end the range whine.

fuck that shit, no deal.

Fucking kiting prick today on eu1 , made me and 2 others follow him for 2 minutes.
I have 10 ath, that dude droped all his shit and just trolled us by running away.

Guess what, in the end a gank group came over us, and while sorrounded by 5 enemy melee i got shot ... which is the usual way to die on eu1.(there are endless similar stories, thats why i stopped playing on eu1 in general a while ago)

new rules
"whenever i get shot by friendly ranged, crtl+M" and Panos rule also will come into effect "no support for friendly ranged you fucks are on your own now"
Perhaps i can grieve these fucking cunts out of the game as they do nothing less, is this what the devs wanted , so be it.

I actually stuck around my own archers yesterday (imagine that! ) and helped them on my shileder alt with a warspear for the horses and we won. Massa even called me a traitor to melee 

You keep griefing your archers and I'll keep helping them, we'll see who will end up winning rounds. gg

[Dionysus]

Every time this debate arises, we are almost always discussing Battle. I no longer think it is an issue of class/build, but with the game mode itself. Battle's "fight-to-the-death" style will undoubtedly cause frustrations when players are defeated by ranged. I still wholeheartedly believe that ranged should be an auxiliary, and I believe the best way to do this would be to refine this current MotF glitch to an actual aspect of Battle. Here is what I've noticed:

1. The team sticks together. Melee stand side by side and ranged take up positions behind.
2. Due to the dense formation and chaos of each fight, ranged are almost always in danger; they have to stay close to the fight in order to be a contributing factor to the fight.
3. Ranged are less effective at killing, but are much more effective at wounding. I would say the biggest exception would be throwers, but they're endanger themselves constantly.

Now, this is only my opinion from all my experiences. I would love to hear what you folks have to say.

[Paul]

So someone "kites" a group with dropping his stuff on the ground and running away, yet noone suggests adding a "destroy equipment on ground" mechanic.

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

So someone "kites" a group with dropping his stuff on the ground and running away, yet noone suggests adding a "destroy equipment on ground" mechanic.

Actually a fairly decentish idea if done properly, as in, requiring the guy destroying the gear to aim his view at it and stand still uninterrupted for an amount of time.

[722_]

So someone "kites" a group with dropping his stuff on the ground and running away, yet noone suggests adding a "destroy equipment on ground" mechanic.

Not if it gets instantly destroyed, I always drop my arrows when having to fight someone in melee, having to carry an extra 20 weight from arrows slows you down alot and allows some people to run circles around you

[Leshma]

Main problem with EU archers is abuse. For example, I like to hold my bow ready but whenever I want to jump on some roof, I find out I can't do that (need to release bow first, which is something I often forgot to do). All because archers in the past abused jump-shoot mechanic.

Next is arrow weight issue. As an archer I always pull out melee weapon, because that's something I'm used to. Even tho I have piss poor footwork and zero PS. I need that speed to successfully fight with melee weapon, not to run away from danger kiting. But no, I can't do that because assholes abused that for years.

Archery is in pretty sad shape atm. It's optimized for shooting and nothing else really. In a way, archers are forced to go full wpf in archery because everything else doesn't make much sense. Having 100 or more wpf in 1H is useless when I weight more than a bloody tincan, while having only a portion of its survivability.

Of course, to fix things Paul suggested another dumb mechanics implementation. Not saying I'm surprised.

[karasu]

Not if it gets instantly destroyed, I always drop my arrows when having to fight someone in melee, having to carry an extra 20 weight from arrows slows you down alot and allows some people to run circles around you

Destroying something that makes me pay in the end of the round almost 2k total....                   Nope.


There will always be ranged players. Always.  And like op says (sigh..) compared to what we had in the past (plated railgun bows/xbows, infinikite, flamberge archers, 1 hit wonders, etc) this is quite a great place we're at.

Adapt, use the surroundings, evolve. Look at players like chase, saxon, etc, they keep adapting and have a perfect sense of placement. It's the best tool when playing battle.