Improving Strength Builds Slightly

[Wurdle]

Strength over the limit of an armor's or weapon's difficulty should give a slight reduction in wpf penalty.
The reduction in wpf penalty should be more than the wpf granted from an extra point in agility, but less than the bonus of an extra point in WM.

This would help slower, tankier builds hold their own against the large amounts of agility based builds currently dominating the servers.

[Jack1]

IMO strength builds need to be improved on so that the servers are not all agi, but I don't think this is the way to do it.

Decreasing WPF's enhancement to damage and increasing PS's would be a way to do it.

[Wurdle]

With my original suggestion we can see the return of 30/3 builds who use low difficulty weapons to offset their loss of weapon proficiency.

[spiritus]

str builds are still very strong just as much as agi tho i think str should be a little bit more tanky even even without IF maybe increasing hitpoints from a str point by 1 so a total of 2 instead of 1.

[Kafein]

Strength over the limit of an armor's or weapon's difficulty should give a slight reduction in wpf penalty.
The reduction in wpf penalty should be more than the wpf granted from an extra point in agility, but less than the bonus of an extra point in WM.

This would help slower, tankier builds hold their own against the large amounts of agility based builds currently dominating the servers.

This is actually a good idea as this would give more incentive to use armors with lower requirements.

[Macropus]

Instead of buffing Strength builds, I'd rather like to see the speed bonus damage being nerfed.
It would also nerf cav, especially agi one, and indirectly make str builds more tanky.

[Voncrow]

Instead of buffing Strength builds, I'd rather like to see the speed bonus damage being nerfed.
It would also nerf cav, especially agi one, and indirectly make str builds more tanky.

But with the latest patches agi cav is a tough thing not to be, with most horses requiring 7 or more riding. On another note, I would like to see a buff to str builds in a way of hp. Buff if to 3 instead of 2 hp per level and maybe 2 points instead of 1 per level of str. One or both would help make what should be a tanky build actually tanky in this game.

[Butan]

I approve of this suggestion which will improve my "crush humans" ability.

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[Kafein]

Instead of buffing Strength builds, I'd rather like to see the speed bonus damage being nerfed.
It would also nerf cav, especially agi one, and indirectly make str builds more tanky.

But with the latest patches agi cav is a tough thing not to be, with most horses requiring 7 or more riding. On another note, I would like to see a buff to str builds in a way of hp. Buff if to 3 instead of 2 hp per level and maybe 2 points instead of 1 per level of str. One or both would help make what should be a tanky build actually tanky in this game.

You guys are looking at a problem and trying to devise the worst possible solution. Tanky builds are already extremely tanky, as being able to survive more than 10 hits from an average source of damage isn't rare. The reason why we love Mount & Blade combat is because it's skill-based and not a fancy spreadsheet viewer. If anything, PS should be buffed as well as melee swing damage values across the board.

[San]

I'm not sure if PS can be changed. 10% would be a nice number for all classes, imo.

I looked into speed bonus, and my 0athletics character had a speed bonus of 57 raw->74 raw while my 10 athletics character had 57 raw -> 80 raw on an unmoving target. You can still get good speed bonus with no athletics, because your slow speed and an agi build's faster speed isn't much of a difference, especially when you utilize the acceleration increase from turning. Without turning shenanigans, the 0athletics did around 64 raw and 10 athletics ~70 raw.

I think that the wpf curve should be changed so that high PS is no longer outdamaged by balanced builds. I made this post a short while ago on the balance forums that raised hypotheticals for potential on improving the current wpf curve.

I would prefer this curve over the current one:

(click to show/hide)

sum formula: 15+55*WM+20*(WM*(WM+1)/2)+14*AGI -> 200+45*WM+15*(WM*(WM+1)/2)+15*AGI

This frontloads free wpf to new characters to a start of 71. Agility and WM still scales, but less heavily than before. I think that a 12wpf increase is suitable for high WM + 3agi since the reward for high athletics is already so great. I don't really have any qualms about the wpp cost.

Code: [Select]

Pure builds:

1WM: 82
2WM: 100
3WM: 116
4WM: 131
5WM: 145
6WM: 158
7WM: 170
8WM: 182
9WM: 193
10WM: 204
11WM: 214
12WM: 224
13WM: 234
14WM: 244
15WM: 253

Code: [Select]

0WM, Agi only:

3: 71
6: 80
9: 87
12: 94
15: 100
18: 106
21: 111
24: 116
27: 121
30: 125
33: 130
36: 134
39: 138
42: 141
45: 145
The free wpf is still tame compared to the past when a level 30 gets 111 wpf and level 36 123 wpf before putting any points in weapon master. It has been roughly a year, so I think there has been enough time to analyze the effects. I also don't think a free respec is necessary, only WPF resets.

Edit: formula change from 10 to 11-12 wpf increase at high WM

I also think IF should be 1.5x better, possibly changing your effective IF before you spawn like a 3/2 multiplier if it works properly.

[Voncrow]

You guys are looking at a problem and trying to devise the worst possible solution. Tanky builds are already extremely tanky, as being able to survive more than 10 hits from an average source of damage isn't rare. The reason why we love Mount & Blade combat is because it's skill-based and not a fancy spreadsheet viewer. If anything, PS should be buffed as well as melee swing damage values across the board.

So athletics stacked should let you out run a Kenyan and enough wm should let you cut lightning, but stacking if shouldn't let you get hit by a truck? From my experience playing in around 40 body armour, I'm lucky to take more than 3 hits and are usually BB by 2. On the other hand other than a nearly armourless shots to the face, it takes 2-3 hits to kill people who are clearly agi builds. Honestly this argument probably suggests a buff for both ps and if, which I would be inclined to agree with. But that is my str bias and will just say that either agi is too tanky or str isn't tanky enough. Also I would probably say 4-5 hits would be appreciated as an average.

[MURDERTRON]

Honestly, if we just undid Tydeus' WPF rework, and tied the previously free WPP per level to AGI, with a target of 18, we wouldn't be dealing with the problems we are having now.  I mean, clearly having ~200WPF is creating issues.  But don't listen to me, I'm just an ineffective troll.

[_Tak_]

I honestly thinks STR is fine as is. I do way better as a 24/15 than a 12/27 AGI whore, as a str tank i can absorb several hits before being killed, especially when using very heavy armors. However as a AGI whore wearing lordly brigandine dies in 1-2 hits very regularly. I dies in 2-3 arrows almost all the time in battle mode even wearing the best armor i can with my str requirement. However as a str whore i can even 1 shot people wearing medium-to almost heavy armors, compare this to being an agi whore i seriously have to hit them several times to kill them even with the speed bonus. especially tincans.

just respec-ted  now into a more STR-build than AGI since str clearly dominates agi in so many ways. I think Varadin has a build of 30/18 sort and he is doing a incredible job with his godlike build.

[Kafein]

So athletics stacked should let you out run a Kenyan and enough wm should let you cut lightning, but stacking if shouldn't let you get hit by a truck? From my experience playing in around 40 body armour, I'm lucky to take more than 3 hits and are usually BB by 2. On the other hand other than a nearly armourless shots to the face, it takes 2-3 hits to kill people who are clearly agi builds. Honestly this argument probably suggests a buff for both ps and if, which I would be inclined to agree with. But that is my str bias and will just say that either agi is too tanky or str isn't tanky enough. Also I would probably say 4-5 hits would be appreciated as an average.

I honestly have very weak opinions regarding the AGI/STR issue at the moment. It seems fine to me. I do have a problem with people being able to stack HP and armor to absurd levels making them virtually invulnerable to melee though. 40 armor rating is insignificant in this mod and being 2 or 3 shot with that is already slightly too many hits in my opinion. Consider the average level 34ish balanced build 2h/polearm guy with +3 heavy kuyak and +3 heavy gauntlets. This means 70+ HP and 64 body armor. You can understand that using weapons usually around 35c I'm not lying when I say those guys take at least 8 hits to die, and often more like 12. Native is much, much more lethal (4-5 hits is a huge amount in Native) than cRPG and really it plays out better when it comes to melee teamfights. Being able to run very fast (besides, ATH doesn't really influence running speed but rather acceleration) doesn't break the systems of this game half as much as being able to tank damage. You're not supposed to tank but to block it. And it's quite evident when looking at cRPG and Native playstyles that blocking is much more important in Native due to higher lethality.

[San]

The more I look at it, the more interesting removing wpf from damage seems to be. Removing this equation: [raw_damage *= wpf * 0.01 * 0.15 + 0.85] starts everyone off at 100wpf in power and then make PS/PT/PD->10%.

5PS 10% matches current damage of a 5PS 148wpf build. 1PS 10% matches 1PS with a 113wpf builds. Compared to the current pure agi builds, it's lower by 4-5 raw damage, but that's not that much even if damage stays the same for melee weapons. Gloves would need to be nerfed and armor looked at again since hybridization and armor won't lower your damage anymore.

Throwing only needs a 0-2 damage increase because the wpf penalties won't affect damage and archery needs +4-6 damage because of the 14%->10% change. I think the damage increases should be on the low end since a ranged + melee hybrid would no longer suffer any more damage penalties.

C/P/B reduce would need to be increased across the board with decreased soak so low damage values deal more damage and high damage values don't scale so quickly.
Something like:
armor_soak_factor_against_cut       = 0.55
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce    = 0.4
armor_soak_factor_against_blunt     = 0.1

armor_reduction_factor_against_cut       = 1.75
armor_reduction_factor_against_pierce    = 1.4
armor_reduction_factor_against_blunt     = 1.8

Even with 1-3 PS and lower raw, the blunt type will deal good minimum damage and slightly less medium-high damage. Low damage cut is made a little better up to medium armor and pierce slightly smooths out its damage spread. Low reduce causes easy glancing at low damage with massive damage spikes at high PS/speed bonus. That's why pierce is a little unstable even at 1.1 reduce right now.