easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

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Linbaba
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easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

Post by Linbaba » 09 Jan 2017, 23:54

I was reading the interactive FAQ. At one point the answer touches on pvp balance, and one argument was that everyone has weaknesses.

For example, woods may make it difficult for cavalry.

I'm not here to start another debate about balance. I was thinking about historical fights, before guns.

I remember for exanple how the Romans would use formations and cover each other with shields to protect themselves as they pushed.

And I had an idea, which I'm sharing because I'm not sure about it.:

Could an arrow go through plate armour? Chainmail?

See if in LIF archers were OP but only towards people without armour, wouldn't that strike a "balance" between realism, gameplay and game mechanics?

What do you think?


Sharana
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Re: easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

Post by Sharana » 10 Jan 2017, 03:22

At the very least arrows should do tiny tiny durability damage to shields so that a shield wall can advance in the open. Now the shields wall just break after 10-20 seconds of focus fire and the infantry gets wreckt after the shields are down (broken).
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Gruber
 
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Re: easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

Post by Gruber » 10 Jan 2017, 13:57

- limit amount of carry able arrows in total, not only equiped ones
- shield should block an arrow to 100% and only little durability damage
- lower the damage of an arrow with the distance

Actually i dont see a reason to balance archery in this state of the game. It seems more like that players are not good enough to counter archers. Sure those platemail 2h Hammer guys cant close the gap to archers, but this is no balance problem. Leather armor, a shield and 1h is fast enough to outrun archers, especially when they carry a lot of arrows.

I have done a lot of archer vs. archer trainig fights.
- evade an incoming arrow is not that hard even on mid range
- hitting someone on long range is quite unlikely as far as your opponent is not a total moron
- with 200 arrows in your pocket you hit from time to time, but 200 arrows should be limited anyway

There will always be those tactic noobs who run towards a group of archers on an open field. But poor tactics do not make archers OP in general.


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Re: easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

Post by Underwaterghostbear » 15 Jan 2017, 00:55

Gruber wrote:- limit amount of carry able arrows in total, not only equiped ones
- shield should block an arrow to 100% and only little durability damage
- lower the damage of an arrow with the distance

Actually i dont see a reason to balance archery in this state of the game. It seems more like that players are not good enough to counter archers. Sure those platemail 2h Hammer guys cant close the gap to archers, but this is no balance problem. Leather armor, a shield and 1h is fast enough to outrun archers, especially when they carry a lot of arrows.

I have done a lot of archer vs. archer trainig fights.
- evade an incoming arrow is not that hard even on mid range
- hitting someone on long range is quite unlikely as far as your opponent is not a total moron
- with 200 arrows in your pocket you hit from time to time, but 200 arrows should be limited anyway

There will always be those tactic noobs who run towards a group of archers on an open field. But poor tactics do not make archers OP in general.


Ehh I'm just gonna point out a few things.

1. Plate was the counter to the bow. Not the disadvantage against it. This is exactly what urged on the gunpowder age. Bows dominated the field until the invention of plate armour, and the development of plate lead to men being able to pass through hails of arrows by MANY accounts. In a balanced game you don't say "It's not a balance issue that archers can take down slow, heavy plated warriors, those people should be wearing less armour and be more vulnerable to each arrow." I mean let's be honest plate armour was the reason bows became obsolete. By the end of the development of plate armour, especially as people started to use better metal than low quality mild iron, the bow was nearly useless against such armours. The only effective shots were ones that managed to pass through a gap. Like I say, it's the reason for the demise of the bow and why the world then developed so quickly in terms of ranged warfare.

Plate's weakness is that it has gaps, hence halfswording etc. The plate wearer should be near invulnerable on a direct hit, only a once in a life time critical hit through the gaps should be at all effective against good plate.

Bows were developed to mow down unarmoured enemies in droves, not to somehow nail people through plate. The counter to plate was others in plate using half sword techniques, slim piercing weapons designed to exploit gaps in the plate or heavy impact crushing weapons made to smack the man inside senseless and fracture his skull. In a balanced game an archer shouldn't be good against EVERYTHING.

2. You can say "Ahhh but you can't really effectively hit at long range" but this just isn't true, it's just a matter of being realistic and firing in groups, like in real life, it's very difficult to miss a group of targets with ten arrows showering their area. An individual archer may have a small chance of hitting an individual enemy over a distance but a group is almost definitely going to hit another group or even a single target, if the damage is unrealistic then you have the balance issue. there's a reason archers were trained to fire as a unit focused at targets so while that argument could maybe fly in YO, in a game of 10,000 in a server it has no weight, because there will now be regiments of archers mowing down people regardless of how armoured they are.

3. to say "evading an arrow at mid range isn't that hard" is neither here or there, it means literally nothing. Evading an arrow from a newbie at mid range is easy because he's probably firing at where you are, not where you're going, but to say the same about an experienced archer who's got his eye and knows his distances, that's complete horse plop and still disregards the fact that you won't be dodging single arrows. You really can't argue that hoping your opponent isn't a good marksmen is substitute for actual balance, can you?

4. What's this 200 arrow nonesense? as though they're not going to be even as smart as medieval man? They're gonna be nicely cushy in their spot with supplies. In a siege situation they can easily have thousands of arrows in reserve. Thousands.



Essentially your reasoning to why this isn't a balance issue is:

Be armoured, the point of which is to block small projectiles and light weaponry .... and be dropped by the arrows and too slow to dodge

OR

Be unarmoured and rush the archers, knowing that the hail of arrows will kill you near instantly (because you're the exact type of troop the bow is made to slaughter in droves and you'll take massive damage) and that the archer you're approaching is probably better armoured than you are anyway because he didn't half the half brained idea to rush the enemy wearing no real armour....

OR

Hope the guy can't shoot... and neither can anyone in his unit. And hope they can't even hit at close range... And hope they don't have side swords...

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Jakkus07
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Re: easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

Post by Jakkus07 » 15 Jan 2017, 13:45

I would suggest:

1. Limit arrows stacks 30-50 - How many? Im leaving this to debate, but being able to have more is too much in my opinion.

2. Normal arrows (Green feathers) dont do too much vs plate - thats whole point with bodkin arrows. Want do decent damage vs plate?
Invest in production of bodkin arrows. Enemy already invested resources in extra armor. You need to invest resources to have extra firepower. Counter equipment with equipment. Military economy vs military economy.

3. Even tho crossbow STILL do much more damage -
Bodkin arrow dmg = normal bolt dmg
Heavy bolt dmg = more dmg than any bow can do
BUT shoots on closer distance
In short - 1 crossbowman is preferred over 3 archers if vs plate

4. Stamina drain while drawing and holding bow - this rule apply especially for longbow. This way bowmen will be tired from shooting and while infantry will be close, they will get tired first. Dont get me wrong, they will be able to run. They just need to start running earlier.

5. The MOST arrows and bolts are WORST weapons for destroying shields - You would need to shoot into shield like A TON arrows to break it, not 15 arrows or something. However like i said earlier MOST arrows. Exception should be FLAME ARROWS. I know it sounds kinda ridiculous but this way archer could counter a little bit normal infantry. At the same time flame arrows are a little costly so they would not be common AND YOU HAVE EXTRA JOB for those lazy alchemist with all this naphta :D
Ofc throwing weapons are still preferred for destroying shields AND cheaper.

6. Those fecking horses - everyone probably already noticed that some ':' archers started using horses as pavises. Definetly no no. Give the horse a little mind of its own. If rider is not on the horse and horse is shot, harmed etc. They would start to panic run away or at least move its ass a little further from danger. :pardon:
In short, you want a shield archers?
Use terrain or actual pavise.

One additional thing. Im aware that PERHAPS this would make bow vs infantry a little unbalanced in other way around, BUT REMEMBER.
- When you are naked and have little armor archer STILL gonna kill you easily
- When you have shields most of infantryman still can be shot in head or legs
- infantry STILL can be flanked and shot from side/ back etc
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Gruber
 
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Re: easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

Post by Gruber » 16 Jan 2017, 10:10

Underwaterghostbear wrote:1. Plate was the counter to the bow. Not the disadvantage against it. This is exactly what urged on the gunpowder age. Bows dominated the field until the invention of plate armour, and the development of plate lead to men being able to pass through hails of arrows by MANY accounts. In a balanced game you don't say "It's not a balance issue that archers can take down slow, heavy plated warriors, those people should be wearing less armour and be more vulnerable to each arrow." I mean let's be honest plate armour was the reason bows became obsolete. By the end of the development of plate armour, especially as people started to use better metal than low quality mild iron, the bow was nearly useless against such armours. The only effective shots were ones that managed to pass through a gap. Like I say, it's the reason for the demise of the bow and why the world then developed so quickly in terms of ranged warfare.


In medeival ages, people in a army had to pay for their own armor. Plate Armor was pretty rare. Most people waer cloth or leather, if lucky chainmail.
Plate Mail was a counter to everything, no blade could pierce through it. blund weapons werent that effectiv as it was displayed today. If you want platemail to be a realistic counter to bow and crosbow, only 1 out of 100 should be able to afford plate mail. That would be realistic.

Underwaterghostbear wrote:Bows were developed to mow down unarmoured enemies in droves, not to somehow nail people through plate. The counter to plate was others in plate using half sword techniques, slim piercing weapons designed to exploit gaps in the plate or heavy impact crushing weapons made to smack the man inside senseless and fracture his skull. In a balanced game an archer shouldn't be good against EVERYTHING.


Bows were developed to hunt, not to fight in a army. Big groups of bowmen were there to scar the enemy. They were used on long range only, on this range an arrow was non leathal.

Underwaterghostbear wrote:2. You can say "Ahhh but you can't really effectively hit at long range" but this just isn't true, it's just a matter of being realistic and firing in groups, like in real life, it's very difficult to miss a group of targets with ten arrows showering their area. An individual archer may have a small chance of hitting an individual enemy over a distance but a group is almost definitely going to hit another group or even a single target, if the damage is unrealistic then you have the balance issue. there's a reason archers were trained to fire as a unit focused at targets so while that argument could maybe fly in YO, in a game of 10,000 in a server it has no weight, because there will now be regiments of archers mowing down people regardless of how armoured they are.


Even in MMO you will rarely see battles of 100 vs 100 (at this moment this is not even possible). Bowmen groups are not that big and there are a lot of things to cover. Going against a group of bowmen on open field is bad tactic and plain stupid. Nothing to fix here, if you want to move like a moron.

Underwaterghostbear wrote:3. to say "evading an arrow at mid range isn't that hard" is neither here or there, it means literally nothing. Evading an arrow from a newbie at mid range is easy because he's probably firing at where you are, not where you're going, but to say the same about an experienced archer who's got his eye and knows his distances, that's complete horse plop and still disregards the fact that you won't be dodging single arrows. You really can't argue that hoping your opponent isn't a good marksmen is substitute for actual balance, can you?


You can see an arrow mid air. It doenst matter how skilled the archer is, you are always able to dodge.

Underwaterghostbear wrote:4. What's this 200 arrow nonesense? as though they're not going to be even as smart as medieval man? They're gonna be nicely cushy in their spot with supplies. In a siege situation they can easily have thousands of arrows in reserve. Thousands.


People who complain that they cant move across an open field in their plate mail to slauter bowmen, are not that smart realy.
If someone moves his tradingcard across the map for hours, resupply is perfectly fine. The problem are archers, running like rabbits with 200 arrows in their backpack. A siege situation anyway is different from an open field fight. You can have as much arrows as you want in siege fight, the people behind the wall have the edge.

Underwaterghostbear wrote:Be unarmoured and rush the archers, knowing that the hail of arrows will kill you near instantly (because you're the exact type of troop the bow is made to slaughter in droves and you'll take massive damage) and that the archer you're approaching is probably better armoured than you are anyway because he didn't half the half brained idea to rush the enemy wearing no real armour....


When you only can imagine some crybaby tactics like rushing archers in a straight line fully visible, then you are right there is no counter. As long as everyone in LiF has a horse, it is simple to attack a group of archers from every direction.

As you speak here, was you ever part of a hugh battle in LiF? Hugh battles are more chaotic than organised. Your and enemy cav roam the whole battlefield freely. Archers fire at free will and not at the same target at the same time. You will not see a close formation, like a shieldwall or anything else. Its not even a loose formation, its chaotic. There is no group to target, only single men on a field.
An archer focused on hitting a target, is more likely to be trampled down by a horsemen than hitting someone.


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Links234
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Re: easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

Post by Links234 » 17 Jan 2017, 08:49

Balance is a good thing, but Bobik himself admitted that the balance is a secondary (not reachable), every few months nerf and buff arms ..
in my memory were bows, Lance, axes, two-handed swords, one-handed swords, Lance again .. maybe it's worth a couple of years to close these issues? :) in the game there are more important objects are not implemented ..


Tormunda
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Re: easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

Post by Tormunda » 17 Jan 2017, 15:27

[quote=
1. Plate was the counter to the bow. Not the disadvantage against it. This is exactly what urged on the gunpowder age. Bows dominated the field until the invention of plate armour, and the development of plate lead to men being able to pass through hails of arrows by MANY accounts. In a balanced game you don't say "It's not a balance issue that archers can take down slow, heavy plated warriors, those people should be wearing less armour and be more vulnerable to each arrow." I mean let's be honest plate armour was the reason bows became obsolete. By the end of the development of plate armour, especially as people started to use better metal than low quality mild iron, the bow was nearly useless against such armours. The only effective shots were ones that managed to pass through a gap. Like I say, it's the reason for the demise of the bow and why the world then developed so quickly in terms of ranged warfare.[/quote]

Yeah I know you are going to get picked apart on this one, so I may as well join in :)

The issue you have here is that the game does not reflect real life weapons and armour development.

In history the armour was always trying to catch up and counter the current weapons of the day. However by that time weapon technology had advanced to make it obsolete.

When Longbows were all the rage, armour was mainly breastplate, helm and greaves. Makings shots to the legs, groin, arms common.

When you get the full plate of the 16th century that you like to see in jousting. This was only a status and display armour as by then weapon technology had already moved to gunpowder.

In LiF, I can develop Heavy Crossbows and Long bows but when the enemy develops full plate, I will not be using muskets. - This is the common theme in Fantasy RPG's

So if you want the reality you wish for, either get rid of the full plate or give people guns! :)


Cian
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Re: easy counter / balance to archers / bowmen

Post by Cian » 18 Jan 2017, 02:35

Before any of you actual try to argue what weapons were used for what purposes it might actually behoove you to spend some time doing some actual research on the subject.

Especially since the medieval times isn't something as clear cut as one particular period of time. It ran from early to mid, to high, over several hundred years. Weapons and tactics evolved constantly and so did the performance of those weapons throughout that time period.

You are also ignoring each particular culture had different ways of fighting, equipping their men, and vastly different designs and qualities in weapons and armor.

These generalized statements that you are all making are merely cherry picking tidbits from a larger picture in order to support your arguments.

I'm not an expert or scholar but even 30 seconds spent in Wikipedia or google outta be enough for you to poke holes in your own arguments.

....


Real life comparisons aside, archers are still a bit too strong en mass. They have very little drawback right now in terms of effectiveness. I think drawing/holding a bow shot should more accurately reflect some stamina drain over time, especially for the larger bows with further ranges.

Crossbows should do more damage and obviously lack the stamina drain but they should have shorter range.

I also agree that bows should do next to nothing vs Full plate/Royal plate unless you use Bodkin arrows or crossbows. This forces archers to carry a variety of ammo types rather than a one size fits all approach. Bodkin arrows should have better penetration and shorter range than normal arrows.

Fire arrows should do good damage to buildings and players in flammable (Padded) armors but do next to nothing to anyone in any type of metal armor.

People are not going to like this answer but essentially the counter to archers are limited to three prospects.
A. Kill them with your archers.
B. Kill them with your horsemen.
C. Run them down with light infantry in leather armor.

I don't see anything wrong with that. But I think the suggestions above should make it harder for archers to just poop all over everyone with the standard arrow complement.

Only my opinion anyhow.
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