Buff HA But...

[JasonPastman]

So make HA viable again but give then the same arch as lance cav.  I think the will balance the class, and force them to hybrid with a sword.

[Grumbs]

Nah. HA serves no purpose but to be annoying to every other class in the game

[Gravoth_iii]

Nah. HA serves no purpose but to be annoying to every other class in the game

Every class that kills me is annoying
 HA is useless now, removed damage cap..

[Porthos]

Let them be. It might also revive the Siege server

[Gravoth_iii]

I dislike them as much as most, but theyve never really been that strong tbh, having a damage cap is just silly. Flags solved most ranged issues anyways, but I do think flags could spawn a bit earlier.

[POOPHAMMER]

I was playing on my naked swordsman the other day (15/30, no ironflesh) and took 3 shots to the head and still had over 25% life

Seems legit

[JasonPastman]

I was playing on my naked swordsman the other day (15/30, no ironflesh) and took 3 shots to the head and still had over 25% life

Seems legit

Lets not forget that the issue with them was that they left every other player feeling like they had been cheated.

When you can ride away from a target while dealing substantial and consistent damage over time without putting any effort into it, such a class shouldn't be permitted in this game.  Kitting footed range are already annoying enough.

I think San's changes were good, 20% damage reduction plus the speed reduction, but there should also be a lance arch.

[Mr.K.]

HA used to counter cav and that's what it should still do. Then it would have a perfect place in a rock-paper-scissors -balancing world. I remember from two years ago when we regularly tried to get one or two HA mercs on our side for the pure purpose of dismounting the enemy cav and stop them from harassing archers and spawnraping infantry. HAs used to do very little damage on heavy armored guys targets, but were easily able to take down any light to medium targets, like horses.

I never quite understood why this balance was changed. With the current soak and reduce values it seems like the options are that HAs do no damage at all on anything (current), or become overpowered due to ability to kite and kill anything (what we had half a year ago). Do we still have active devs that could look into the possibility of tweaking the values so that heavy armor would actually protect against horse archers, but not so much against regular longbow+bodkin archers? It seems like this balance is tough to get perfect with the Warband engine though...

Anyway, HA needs a buff as it's not usable atm. My archer char survives four headshots from a HA - and he has no head armor.

[JasonPastman]

HA used to counter cav and that's what it should still do. Then it would have a perfect place in a rock-paper-scissors -balancing world. I remember from two years ago when we regularly tried to get one or two HA mercs on our side for the pure purpose of dismounting the enemy cav and stop them from harassing archers and spawnraping infantry. HAs used to do very little damage on heavy armored guys targets, but were easily able to take down any light to medium targets, like horses.

I never quite understood why this balance was changed. With the current soak and reduce values it seems like the options are that HAs do no damage at all on anything (current), or become overpowered due to ability to kite and kill anything (what we had half a year ago). Do we still have active devs that could look into the possibility of tweaking the values so that heavy armor would actually protect against horse archers, but not so much against regular longbow+bodkin archers? It seems like this balance is tough to get perfect with the Warband engine though...

Anyway, HA needs a buff as it's not usable atm. My archer char survives four headshots from a HA - and he has no head armor.

Yea so, making the HA a counter to melee cav is not a good Idea.  Cav already are countered by basically any player who knows how to deal with them.  If they become a substantial threat to cav again, then all the cav will just go HA (as i did) if they still want to ride a horse, on top of that many other players will go HA, because the only counter to them will be other range.

With arch limitations at least they can't kite and shoot which otherwise made them un-counterable by other cav or any other class not range for that matter, and this would require actual skill in terms of riding and maneuvering to actually make the shot.  The damage should still be substantially limited with that but definitely increased from the current cap.

Cav v Cav fights are one of the most fun things about this mod imo (ive played every class).  HA's had and still do, although futility, attempt to ruin those engagements.  HA should not be a viable counter to Cav or anything else for that matter but rather a limited support class if its made viable at all.

I hate the notion of rock paper etc.  as it puts too much emphasis on the class instead of the skill of the individual, which is what makes this game fun.

[Nightingale]

removing the damage cap will fix horse archery; it was fine last patch before the damage cap was overlooked by the revert.

[Dionysus]

Mounted range has no place in multiplayer.

[Nightingale]

Mounted range has no place in multiplayer.

Dionysus has no place in multiplayer.

[JasonPastman]

removing the damage cap will fix horse archery; it was fine last patch before the damage cap was overlooked by the revert.

So, you may recall that server pop was topping on NA was topping at 30ish and averaged at 20 during that period. Folks like kojiro were topping the charts with with their damage scores.  Additionally no one was viably playing light cav at that time on NA.  Without an arch curve nerf, cav and agi builds are going to get trolled hard from this, as well as everyone else in the open.

The simple fact is that Horse damage is all about the speed bonus and hit area.  When chasing a fleeing cav, generally only a lance is viable so even if he can reach him because the attacker has no speed bonus and probably a penalty the damage done to the HA horse is minimal, while the HA has full advantage of the speed bonus and the head of the horse which will be facing him.  This is why the arch is so important in cav battles. Having an arch will force the HA to actually engage the Cav, instead of an agonizing cat and mouse chase. 

What you propose is returning to the equivalent of a melee chasing the kiting archer, but in this case he is actually able to shoot and kill you as he makes his escape.  Can you imagine the rage on the forums if archers could do this?  Why allow it for HA?

How can it be argued that Lance cav should have the arch nerf but not Ranged Cav?

[JasonPastman]

visitors can't see pics , please register or login



What this shows is that 53% of respondents, a majority, want ranged to be nerfed.  The poll had 49 respondents which is a statistically viable sample of the current active population.  The "give them run" option was included to reduce troll responses and allow for a very attractive non-nerfing option.  The poll is several weeks old, a duration of which was only during this patch.

The question is then, if the majority of population want ranged nerfed, then why add more of it to the game, especially in such an effective capacity?

[Nightingale]

So, you may recall that server pop was topping on NA was topping at 30ish and averaged at 20 during that period. Folks like kojiro were topping the charts with with their damage scores.  Additionally no one was viably playing light cav at that time on NA.  Without an arch curve nerf, cav and agi builds are going to get trolled hard from this, as well as everyone else in the open.

The simple fact is that Horse damage is all about the speed bonus and hit area.  When chasing a fleeing cav, generally only a lance is viable so even if he can reach him because the attacker has no speed bonus and probably a penalty the damage done to the HA horse is minimal, while the HA has full advantage of the speed bonus and the head of the horse which will be facing him.  This is why the arch is so important in cav battles. Having an arch will force the HA to actually engage the Cav, instead of an agonizing cat and mouse chase. 

What you propose is returning to the equivalent of a melee chasing the kiting archer, but in this case he is actually able to shoot and kill you as he makes his escape.  Can you imagine the rage on the forums if archers could do this?  Why allow it for HA?

How can it be argued that Lance cav should have the arch nerf but not Ranged Cav?

The angle isn't the problem and never was the problem. if you take that from Horse archers you will have them just as useless as they are now. The way Horse archers have to play to get ANY kills is high risk; bumping and then shooting which does reward a lot of points but often times not many kills. So the class is "annoying" but hardly considered "effective"

Balancing the game according to what the people want is the most idiotic form of balance there could ever be. Besides that poll means nothing, 30% of that vote alone is targeted at one specific type of range which is throwers and I myself can not argue that throwers are fine currently they do need nerf in more ways than one. Looking even further into the bias of this poll it should be taken into consideration that cRPG has always been ANTI range. Also those 11 votes do matter if you are truly concerned with what the people want; trolls or not they play the game and their vote should be considered all the same. Following your logic of balancing the game according to what the 53% want.

You could make another poll and name it "buff what" and you will find that the numbers flip flop because people vote with only one person in mind, themselves and "nerf what" to the individual is "what class annoys me the most", not "What class is most deserving of a nerf."

(click to show/hide)

angle restriction is unneeded; Horse archers already have a -20% speed -20% damage and limited ammo; they already get ran down by even much slower horses simply because even with high riding the speed penalty for using a bow is harsh enough for them to be caught and killed. Besides one can argue that the most effective spot for cav to attempt to lance was direclty infront of them which is still allowed; where as the most effective location for an archer on horse back to shoot is behind them; if this angle restriction was set in stone they would lose their most effective spots being the sides and the back.