Ranged stagger: Should it stay or should it go

[Kafein]

I didn't bring up realism, so don't make it my argument.

Well I didn't either, I merely wanted to respond to Viriathus. And indeed if you get shot and an arrow actually ends up in your flesh you are going to feel very very bad for a short time, but that doesn't justify a stagger when you wear armor with padding beneath it and are only mildly damaged by a projectile. So yeah I think some sort of more realistic approach would perhaps be better here.


Also I don't completely agree with the argument that because polearms can hit faster than bows they should not have a stun while the bows do. Recently the smaller bows are by far more popular and those can be shot extremely quickly. Not as quick as polearms of course, but assuming an imaginary scenario of some heavy armor dude running after a peasant archer with a mg42 bow, it could be that by landing all shots on target the peasant can kite indefinitely using the stagger.

[Viriathus]

Theres nothing wrong with archery, the only thing wrong is that there are to many archers in the battlefield, i dont mind the stun or anything else.
So focus on decreasing the number of arrow spammers instead of making up excuses to justify your raging behavior when you get shot on EU1/NA1.

[Lord_Kitazawa_of_Voodoo]

Theres nothing wrong with archery, the only thing wrong is that there are to many archers in the battlefield, i dont mind the stun or anything else.
So focus on decreasing the number of arrow spammers instead of making up excuses to justify your raging behavior when you get shot on EU1/NA1.

Nerf unloomed bows and arrows - decreases the number of effective archers while leaving the dedicated archers alone.

[Nightingale]

IDK, I feel like maybe having the bows have stagger is a bit OP but as a dedicated crossbow man I thrive on that stagger. It takes me 5 seconds(I just counted) to reload my arbalest with 123wpf. The stagger is one of the few pluses to it(gives me time to reload which i desperately need) besides the high damage output. Just my opinion since everyones just talking about archery and not about crossbows.

That is strange because I just counted and got 7-8 seconds with 185 wpf to reload my arbalest...

Especially a weapon like Arbs should be long-distance sniper weapons. Any chucklefuck with 0 WPF who picked one up in a Strat battle can tell you how OP they are in close range since you never miss and you rack up kills with little to no threat for your own safety like no other weapon. I've had plenty of 30+ kills 2 death matches with 0 WPF. Staggering to give you more breathing room in close quarters is the opposite of how that weapon should play. If someone is close enough that a stagger is the difference between kiting/reloading and death you should be pulling out a melee weapon.

Stagger is stupid and sometimes gamebreaking. Try to fight in a melee line when a handful of throwers, archers, and whatever else open up on you at once. Since you can't juke mid stagger, you get focus fired and are stuck in place like an epileptic idiot. They do enough damage as it is without needing that crutch. Being locked in place because of ranged fire and having no way to counter it has no semblance of skill, fun, or competitively balanced gameplay.

While I agree that the Arb should be mainly used as a long distance weapon. I don't recall anyone ever racking up 30+ kills with 1 wpf in xbows during any of the strat battles I played in. As a dedicated Arb user I generally hover right around 30 kills if the team I am fighting for isn't completely shit. So its kind of hard to believe that every time you picked up an Arb in a strat battle it was an instant kill because I'm calling BS on that. The only people I can "One Shot" without headshot are archers/melee with either 15 strength or 18 strength and no ironflesh and under 45ish body armor.

I read that last paragraph of your post Smoothrich and just kinda laugh and think "Why can't I kill all 5 of the range shooting at me by charging straight in at them." The only reason you aren't capable of killing all 5 of those range as it is right now, is because more likely than not. One of those archers/xbowers/throwers are going to hit you by chance since you can twitch your body around as if you were having an epileptic seizure and stun you making you an easier target for about half a second so the other 4 range have an easier time shooting at you.

Nerf unloomed bows and arrows - decreases the number of effective archers while leaving the dedicated archers alone.

If you nerfed unloomed stuff all you would be doing is nerfing new players with no access to +3s.

[Hirlok]

If you nerfed unloomed stuff all you would be doing is nerfing new players with no access to +3s.

...which of course is not the case for armor, 1h, 2h, shields, xbows, bolts, horses, poles, throwing weapons... errrr, wait: EVERYfuckingthing in the game except arrows and bows. Makes sense they do not get any additional value by looming. Totally.


(((but on a sidenote buffing loomed archery stuff would be more appropriate)))

[Jarold]

Archery seemed pretty effective to me using my unloomed rus bow and one stack of bodkins before they got the unloomed buff. It's just the people who sucked with bows cried and of course the buff followed.

The real way to stop the ranged spam is to let the hype die down and hopefully it gets normal again before the mod dies.

[Dionysus]

So, if this were removed and I were to get hurt by a ranged weapon, I would be hit but still able to move?

[Leshma]

If you nerfed unloomed stuff all you would be doing is nerfing new players with no access to +3s.

We need more new melee players, have more than enough archers as it is.

[Templar_Steevee]

Ranged stun should be based on effective dmg (same we are getting points for atm)

Before patch buffing non loomed bows i were palying for lol with short bow and bodkins. I were able to kill few ppl every map and help my team even with shittiest bow.

Reverting patch buffing non loomed bows is good option IMO. Now ppl know that tatar or nomad bow is good with dmg on +3, so if devs revert path players who still want to play effective with those bows will loom them or they will quit archery and become otcher clases (x-bow probably).

[Jona]

So, if this were removed and I were to get hurt by a ranged weapon, I would be hit but still able to move?

You will flinch upon impact instead of being all but sprawled out on the floor after impact. Now when you are hit your character essentially goes into the same animation as if you were kicked, the "stagger" animation. If it is removed you instead flinch, as if you got hit by a melee weapon. It would still cancel any blocks or attacks you were doing, and stop you from moving for that one split second, but at least you wont be helpless for much long... at least that is my understanding of this discussion. Being able to run and not even flinch upon impact would be pretty hilarious though. 

[Dionysus]

Right. Yeah, I could see the game without that. I mean, there's not reason to really compare it to polestagger, since that was just silly, but I don't see why that stagger should exist for anything other than kicks.

[Eugen]

Short version of discussion:

[...]Staggering to give you more breathing room in close quarters is the opposite of how that weapon should play. If someone is close enough that a stagger is the difference between kiting/reloading and death you should be pulling out a melee weapon.

If stagger was limited to high powerdraw / heavy (x-)bows / throwing heros and short range shots only its ok for me. It resemebls the hit person hunch over in pain, before being able to chase. Its risk vs gain kiting since the archer would be in melee without ready weapon if his shot missed. It would be terrible, if every lowlevel ranged could do this even at long/medium distance(can they right now? - i think not).

Stagger is stupid and sometimes gamebreaking. Try to fight in a melee line when a handful of throwers, archers, and whatever else open up on you at once. Since you can't juke mid stagger, you get focus fired and are stuck in place like an epileptic idiot. They do enough damage as it is without needing that crutch. Being locked in place because of ranged fire and having no way to counter it has no semblance of skill, fun, or competitively balanced gameplay.

Maybe you should not charge such an enemy formation  . The effect you describe is being "pinned" by rapid fire. I somehow like it that something like this can happen if one charges without gauging the enemy. Maybe an advancing shieldwall could help in such a situation or flanking the enemy formation from another side, or calling cav for help or even counter fire.

A good archer saves a bloody rambo on their team, or the lone survivor of a small scrum from 3-5 enemy trying to run him down until he can make it back to the main body. It happens every round, but people are so wrapped up in their melee-centric world that 95% of the time, they don't even notice that their ass was saved. Most of them don't hit teammates more than 5-10% of the time and if they do, press the mutha fuckin ctrl-M every time and they will get their asses booted.
The difference between ranged stagger and pole stagger is that ranged can't keep you stun locked. It takes too long between shots. Unless of course you want to talk about multiple ranged, and then I will just say gtfo arguing about a 1vs2-5 situation.
[...]

nothing to be added

[...] Most melee want ranged stun to be removed completely, but most ranged want it to be left alone. So I said remove it on the lower tier bows but keep it on the higher tier bows. [...]

I voted "stay" of course, but would love to see 2 changes:

- overall slight nerf of the stun intensity

- make stun dependant on PD and shot distance

I would like to have solutions of both O.P's combined

Your opinion about ranged stagger is only valid if you have an archer char with 10:1 or better kd rating(with a minimum of 10k kills). Anything else is ignored.

ignored.

Cheers.

[Grumbs]

So, if this were removed and I were to get hurt by a ranged weapon, I would be hit but still able to move?

It would probably be like with melee weapons, you would get slowed down a bit depending on the damage. Just not rooted to the spot for a sec regardless what hits you or what you're doing (it even stops you mid flight while jumping)

About xbows...The issue here is people wanting their cake and eating it. If you want such good ranged damage/accuracy you should sacrifice more in melee for that. ATM you can use whatever armour, have no skill sink and have great melee weapons. You can use a shield with 1 hand even.

The ease of use of xbows should really interact badly with your melee potential for balance reasons

Just the usual backwards stuff we get here in cRPG

[Leshma]

Today, that annoying YuRneRO fellow hit me so hard that I was pushed five meters back and fell from a wall. This "stun" is just silly.

[Lord_Kitazawa_of_Voodoo]

Today, that annoying YuRneRO fellow hit me so hard that I was pushed five meters back and fell from a wall. This "stun" is just silly.

I don't think the idea is silly, but it seems too intense in some cases (as Hirlok suggested, lower the intensity without removing it completely).