Decrease levels

[WarLord]

I find the game much more enjoyable now that most people are around the same level instead of having most oldfegs at level 35 and most new payers quitting before they begin. The game is more challenging for me with everyone on a somewhat even playing field.

I think another issue people have is they equate high str with more damage and high agi with less. IMO (just mine though) a 27/18 build should do equal damage per swing to a 18/27 build. That allows players to choose what style of combat they like best without having to sacrifice killing potential. High str, again imo, should have more considerably more HP than high agi, but the same damage per swing. Whereas high agi is much faster than high str, but not be able to take more than 1-2 hits. This would leave str builds for those that enjoy tank-style play, and high agi for those that enjoy gank-and-run style play. Tanks would of course be vulnerable to swarms, and high agi to getting one shot. Adjusting the requirements for armors would be necessary, as well as perhaps tweaking IF a bit (i.e. the first four levels of IF give you +3 hp each, the next 4 +2 HP each, and anything above that +1 hp each).

If you play high strength it should be because you enjoy feeling like a tank, not beacuse you think you need the PS to do damage. Same with agi, play it because you like being fast, not because you feel like you need the speed bonus.

This! I play str-based builds because of more hp (tankyness), while I feel like agi based builds make even more damage and are faster, just take less hits to kill them.

But all in all I think the game never was as balanced as now.

[Sparvico]

Right, tone down the speed bonus a smidge and make heavy armors require more str. IMO (using body armor as the easiest example) anything over 50 armor pre heirloom should need 21 str, and anything that can hit 50 or more post heirloom should need 18.

Right now as a 18/27 build I can use any armor in the game and mostly retain my speed bonus. That is what is broken about high agi builds.

(click to show/hide)

For anyone wondering I normally run with 6 head, 35 body, and 21 leg armor, but I run with 50+ body often enough to defiantly say that I retain to much of my speed bonus for that armor value.

[Leshma]

I think that armor and weapon requirements should be significantly raised and that gloves should be further nerfed. As a player without loomed armor set and wearing light armor I die quite easily, in one or two hits. Balanced build, level 34 most of the time. Can't really spam, have to block exceptionally and time my attacks.

Average player I'm facing is level 36/37, with optimized douchebag long weapon spam build, in fully decked medium armor (rating between 60-75). They don't even have to know how to block because of glitchy netcode. Just keep spamming to get a lucky hit here and there, rely on high armor to enforce glances etc.

Balancer's job should be to identify most used/optimized or otherwise known as OP build/gear and tone that down. Anyone who plays regularly knows what is the most OP build, gear and weapons.

Most players in this mod are still very bad, but they acquired better gear and levels over time which allow them to perform better than they would if everyone were playing on even field or in balanced environment. Should be noted that many players wouldn't even play cRPG if there wasn't a way for them to take an advantage, be it better gear or simply being part of clan stack.

Bottom line, cRPG has always been broken and will stay that way until it dies like a poor, glitchy bastard it always was. But knowledge acquired over years of playing cRPG should be used in creation of M:BG to avoid doing same mistakes.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. Something I suggested years ago but Tydeus completely ignored it. Wpf should be hard caped at 175 for every proficiency, game is acting funny after you go pass that bar.

[Kalp]

Tanks would of course be vulnerable to swarms

That's why I regret that I can't hit more than one enemy with the same swing 

[San]

I'll list a few changes that I really tried to push before the previous patch hit. Feel free to agree/disagree.

-Armor wpf changes: It wasn't feasible to raise the power of PS or increase HP, so I felt it was good to play off the bonuses of strength: less wpf mitigation for strength and more for agi. I was expecting agi builds to lose a good 5-8 wpf on average and strength gaining around 10-15, making it so that it would be tougher for agi builds to outspam everything unless they're wearing very light armor. It was tied to IF since it's the most melee-centric skill outside of PS. Cav, ranged, and agi builds lose some things when they raise IF, while strength gains much more from -3 strength and filling up IF now.

-Glove nerfs: I'm satisfied with how it is now, except for maybe how leather gloves aren't too great vs. mail mittens still. My original idea with it reduced armor and gained/reduced the weight when looming depending on the glove. It would've reduced armor by around 3-5 on average.

-0-2 shield skill and board shield buffs: Shields receive a double bonus from the skill and having access to better shields. Even with the buff, a 4 shield skill + 4 shield skill shield is still going to be much more durable than 2 shield skill with a 2 shield skill shield. They still break relatively quickly in melee, but help against ranged if a problem arises. It's worth it to loom these shields now.

-mid-tier 1h buffs. I wanted 1h swords to be fast, but weak (speed buffs to low tier swords). The long weapons remain slow, but have somewhat good cut and pierce. Pierce weapons would be relatively quick, powerful, and "light" and blunt would be slower and heavy for increased knockdown and stun (mostly against other 1hs and light 2h). Axes were made by someone else (wanted the fighting axe buffed more lol) but that was also a welcome change to me.

-2h/polearm blunt weight changes. Weapon stun should be an intended feature, as long as you don't have a high combination of weight+speed+length. The blunt stab boost was warranted, too, considering the models. Poleaxes are generally very powerful since they're like normal weapons with the added perk of bonus to shields, but w/e.

A lot of other changes were pre-emptive global changes for what was expected might happen (or mandated) should the STF level be increased by 5 and average level by 3. Definitely not perfect since it required a lot of guessing into the future along with the introduction of new items, but I hoped there would be more frequent patches afterwards that would've adjusted anything noticeably out of place.

[722_]

How do you feel about the long spear San?

[San]

I'd like to have slightly better turn rates, but Gurnisson made a thread that decreased the Long Spear's and Pike's weights and I agreed with him on it. Not much else could be done, but it should've helped a little bit.

[Leshma]

When I made the "bring back high levels" suggestion, I did because I thought people would use extra points for hybrid builds which were common on the actual battlefield (like they are in native Warband). Two years later you 'revived' cRPG with a patch that includes high levels, but players abuse that to create completely unrealistic OP or trollish builds. Which is to be expected out of this community. And I'm way past the time when I cared about it.

But if you really want to work on balance, you should explore hybrid builds more. They bring fun to the players, help balance and raise overall upkeep that way keeping expensive gear usage in check. Leads to more realistic battlefield etc.

You'll most likely fail if you try to do so, because this community likes to dress up silly and behave accordingly to their looks and mental state (took me awhile to realize that huge portion of player base 'consume' this mod in altered state of mind, under influence of drugs and alcohol).

Most veterans (those who started playing 6 months before I did) of this game prefer hybrid and balanced builds and understand why are they important. Sadly, very few of those are still playing.

Love the mod for what it is, a silly freak show with swords. it won't become something entirely different at such old age.

[Gravoth_iii]

Rocking 27-21 this patch, hits very hard with consistent damage compared to agi where it may vary a lot depending on the speedbonuses. Tanky as a motherfucker aswell, str build is the way to go now imho.

[MURDERTRON]

When I made the "bring back high levels" suggestion, I did because I thought people would use extra points for hybrid builds which were common on the actual battlefield (like they are in native Warband). Two years later you 'revived' cRPG with a patch that includes high levels, but players abuse that to create completely unrealistic OP or trollish builds. Which is to be expected out of this community. And I'm way past the time when I cared about it.

But if you really want to work on balance, you should explore hybrid builds more. They bring fun to the players, help balance and raise overall upkeep that way keeping expensive gear usage in check. Leads to more realistic battlefield etc.

You'll most likely fail if you try to do so, because this community likes to dress up silly and behave accordingly to their looks and mental state (took me awhile to realize that huge portion of player base 'consume' this mod in altered state of mind, under influence of drugs and alcohol).

Most veterans (those who started playing 6 months before I did) of this game prefer hybrid and balanced builds and understand why are they important. Sadly, very few of those are still playing.

Love the mod for what it is, a silly freak show with swords. it won't become something entirely different at such old age.

There is no reason to hybridized melee now.  If you get bored of one type, simply wait a week and respec.  Obviously, you won't hybrid two ranged classes, or you'll get fucked on slots.  Since there are so many available points, and it costs such a small investment to get into crossbow, everyone is just doing that.  The only way to avoid something like this is to cap attribute points at something like 24 or 27, which no one wants to do.

[Umbra]

Game is better with a smaller end game gap. They could have achieved the same thing by buffing xp required for lvls 32,33 and making 34 impossible. But i think its more fun this way.

[Leshma]

There is no reason to hybridized melee now.

That is correct, no reason at all. What I'm talking about is forcing hybrid builds on players, just like they did when free wpf was removed and true STR builds obliterated.

I was always pro hybrid because it solves many problems:

• In case of melee/ranged hybrids everybody is fighting on the same level, no more qq how something is unfair if everyone has similar options (allow deployable ladders, even if them being a bit bugged)
• gives different melee options to players (spear/sword) and forces them to adapt to different weapon multiple times during the round, instead of becoming familiar with just one weapon and its (broken) reach
• higher chance for upkeep, because carrying more items
• players don't look as retarder like when they carry only 2H strong and most importantly don't act as retarded whenever something ranged hits them

Last 3 years or so I'm completely against the very idea of cRPG 'pure' builds (Paul was the reason why pure builds survived, luckily he's not in the picture anymore) and pro choice bullshit and consider that as start of slow death of cRPG. cRPG is better than Native because of vast choice of gear, fixed many bugs and other silly design choices changed for the better and the very nature of having permanent char you can upgrade. But the system which is in place of upgrading has always been rubish, devs are aware of that and that system won't be in M:BG. Character stats and heirloom system in this mod has never been done very well, despite us putting up with it every day for past 4 years or more.

First signs of disease were peasants on invisible horses (Finished aka Michael and his followers), but that was just a short term cold. Cancer begun developing with Danish Greatsword wielding Kuyak heroes. That is the moment when devs should step up and change the course of the mod into something else, to not allow it turn into freak show. But they didn't and only thing we left today is a freak show mod. And no one takes cRPG outside of this community serious. As much I have credibility for being serious person in this community, same level of credibility have cRPG mod among outsiders. All because wrong design choices.

[Gravoth_iii]

That is correct, no reason at all. What I'm talking about is forcing hybrid builds on players, just like they did when free wpf was removed and true STR builds obliterated.

I was always pro hybrid because it solves many problems:

• In case of melee/ranged hybrids everybody is fighting on the same level, no more qq how something is unfair if everyone has similar options (allow deployable ladders, even if them being a bit bugged)
• gives different melee options to players (spear/sword) and forces them to adapt to different weapon multiple times during the round, instead of becoming familiar with just one weapon and its (broken) reach
• higher chance for upkeep, because carrying more items
• players don't look as retarder like when they carry only 2H strong and most importantly don't act as retarded whenever something ranged hits them

Last 3 years or so I'm completely against the very idea of cRPG 'pure' builds (Paul was the reason why pure builds survived, luckily he's not in the picture anymore) and pro choice bullshit and consider that as start of slow death of cRPG. cRPG is better than Native because of vast choice of gear, fixed many bugs and other silly design choices changed for the better and the very nature of having permanent char you can upgrade. But the system which is in place of upgrading has always been rubish, devs are aware of that and that system won't be in M:BG. Character stats and heirloom system in this mod has never been done very well, despite us putting up with it every day for past 4 years or more.

First signs of disease were peasants on invisible horses (Finished aka Michael and his followers), but that was just a short term cold. Cancer begun developing with Danish Greatsword wielding Kuyak heroes. That is the moment when devs should step up and change the course of the mod into something else, to not allow it turn into freak show. But they didn't and only thing we left today is a freak show mod. And no one takes cRPG outside of this community serious. As much I have credibility for being serious person in this community, same level of credibility have cRPG mod among outsiders. All because wrong design choices.

I like freakshow crpg c:

[Algarn]

I like freakshow crpg c:

Even if the cost is decently populated servers.

[Leshma]

Well, I like it too. And wouldn't change it at this point. Just said what could be done in the past but didn't.

But... next medieval game has to be serious one. Why? Because cRPG was pretty much the only game I played for past 4 years. I don't come to cRPG to fool around when I'm taking a break DotA, WoW, EVE Online or whatever game people consider as their main.