OP archers

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Hanz_knife
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OP archers

Post by Hanz_knife » 05 Mar 2016, 21:29

Some might disagree but players with lot of PVP willl i think agree that now, archers are heavy overpowered because even in open field battle there is not many ways to counter them. Basically they use hit and run tactics, they fire arrows and then they run away little bit from you and fire again.

There is no way you can catch them on foot! Now combat looks more like archery competition, logical way is to use lance and counter it, but there some things too….

1) They can easily kill your horse using arrows and naptha pots
2) Lags, damned lags! Worst thing to do is ride into claim, lag is insane on a horse…
I cant overpass the idiocy that you can use shields, heavy armor, no armor and high speed, but still if you are on foot, you cant kill the damned unprotected archers on open field battles. Situation is still the same.
You are on foot and chasing one archer, his buddy is gonna fire at you while you are trying to hit the first one so you get killed!
I know PVP will be balanced in like every patch going on, but current situation is a real nightmare for melee players!

My suggestions:

1) Longer time needed to draw a bow

2) Give some blunt damage to player knocked down by a horse (so if you fail hitting him properly with lance, you can still give him some trouble

3) Increase weight of bodkin arrows, you should be able to carry like 15 but no freakin 60 prepared to fire!

Archers were more like supporting units, much needed to support at battle or siege but they were very vulnerable to attacks, they needed to be guarded properly.
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Re: OP archers

Post by Hoshiqua » 05 Mar 2016, 22:38

The historical weakness of archers is not only melee. They could still get away, I guess, with a sidearm. Their biggest ""counter"" were heavy armored people who could essentially ignore their arrows and just slaughter them. Sadly, in this game, plate is made out of thin paper whenever a weapon is marked "piercing" and since all arrows do pierce.. well..

The other thing that doesn't make sense is that arrows do more damage against naked people than people with some cloth on. LOL

What does that mean ? Does the arrow say "f*ck you naked plebe" and go out of the guy on the other side and come back into him ?

My point is, arrows should have a maximum damage threshold (like 30 for piercing since the head is very small, and 60 for broadhead, so that they actually get used again). Also increase the overall piercing protection of all armor if you're gonna stay with that damage system..


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Re: OP archers

Post by Filipsss » 06 Mar 2016, 08:48

IMO bows are overpowered aswell. I agree with Hanz in all statements.

There are few ways how to nerf them without decreasing their defensive capabilities.

1) Set maximum amount of arrows that you can carry. 20 would be enough. This can be done by adding quivers which you have to craft to store arrows in.

2) Increase stamina drain when u draw while running.

3) Make new system of aiming. For example: you aim, and start with huge crosshair which will get smaller by the time. (oposite of what we have now).

feel free to react to my proposed solutions.

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Kazar
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Re: OP archers

Post by Kazar » 06 Mar 2016, 09:14

I definetly agree about OP archers.

One thing is that they historicaly were really vulnerable to all meele weapons if they were alone, and the other things is playability. There will always be strugle between these two game factors and we need to find the balance.

Historically accurrate: archers were not like in the hobbit movie. They did not run around and fire and run and again and again. They move to position and fire a tons of arrows to make them rain on the enemy.

In game: archers are like legolas in hobbit movie. Run around and hit and run, with bodkins they can kill enemy in 3hits. (if enemy will have more cons it will be 5 hits)

Sugestion: lets make this accurate to history. They need to find good position and fire, not run and fire run and fire. Archers were very important in battles cause they could deal dmg from the distance without exposing themselfs to danger. If infantry can protect them effectively.

Hisotrically accurate: archers were able to aim pretty fast, but that fast like in game.

In game: if you have good control of your mouse you can aim in no time. When enemy is comming at you, you have more probability to hit him.

Sugestion: lets make aiming for bows longer. The aiming hud will be getting from huge (all over the screen) to big (half of the screen) to medium and small. The size of the hud and the time to aim will depend on your skill and if you will wait for too long the hud will be getting bigger again. So you will need to find the perfect moment for the shot.

Historically accurate: when archers were exposed to berserkers they flee for their lives and if they try to fire they were slaughtered. They fear them. When they ran away they were tired and they cant fire at them right away.

In game: archer has no fear of their live cause they know they are OP at the moment. When they are tired they can fire one or two shots cause stamina allows them.

Sugestion: lets make aiming slover and hud size bigger when they have less then 100% stamina.


All this sugestion that I am making here is not to nerf archers cause I hate them, but because of making the game more playable to all fighting trees.

If there are some gramatical mistakes I am sorry for it.
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Re: OP archers

Post by Azzerhoden » 07 Mar 2016, 02:14

I've often felt that the only thing archery needed for balance (after the last batch of balancing) was to not allow them to move and fire.

Yes, yes - I saw the video with the guy running around and shooting targets. It was very impressive, and I believe it was historically accurate for highly trained, life-long students of archery.

In this game though, given how long it takes to train up archery when consuming good food (+/- 15 minutes at 1x multiplier), players should be treated as stationary archers to actually fire.
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Re: OP archers

Post by Hoshiqua » 07 Mar 2016, 16:08

when archers were exposed to berserkers


"Berserkers" were personal champions serving lords in scandinavia kingdoms, fighting duels for them. Berserker is the word for "champion" in old Danish I believe. So please stop using it to refer to people using two handed weapons and heavy armor, it literally has nothing to do.

Making archers stationary would be a good change, yes, but not enough. You'd just have to fight from a longer range to keep safe, but they could still manage themselves so you never catch up to them.

Let me take your "model" of making points.

Historically accurate : war bows were at least 130 pounds drawweight approximately, long bows being 180. You can't hold it drawn for more than a few seconds even if you're extremely strong.
Archers would aim BEFORE shooting, like it's done right now in target shooting. However, after using all that energy to fire all these shots, good luck finding strength to run away full speed from someone charging you, or on the contrary, good luck shooting properly after you ran.

To make it clear : Making a system where aiming is done while the bow is drawn is not realistic or historically accurate, AND wouldn't really solve the problem.

In general, just adding time required to shoot or to be able to run away after that shot will not solve the problem - it will only make it a bit more difficult for archers, but the principle of "running away whenever he gets too close, get some distance back, fire again" will still work.

What needs to be done are changes on the stamina system. Make stamina a more "medium term" than long term thing. A good example of a "medium term" stamina system is Arma's, where it takes a while to exhaust all your stamina, but it takes a while getting it back to full.

A similar system could easily be added into the game.
Archery speaking, this would give archers a choice : either run away until you reach safety but give up about shooting any powerful or accurate arrows, or stand your ground and try to get a few more arrows into the guy(s) coming your way to better your chances of winning the melee fight, which promotes a more position based style of play rather than kiting style of play, which is the goal here.

Of course to do that would require bows to take a big chunk of stamina to shoot depending on their size, but the aiming itself shouldn't. The current aiming system is more realistic. Of course, the crosshair should start bigger when drawing the bow with low stamina, and reduce the damage of the arrow, so that an out-of-breath archer would have no chance of properly shooting.

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Kazar
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Re: OP archers

Post by Kazar » 08 Mar 2016, 13:11

"Berserkers" were personal champions serving lords in scandinavia kingdoms, fighting duels for them. Berserker is the word for "champion" in old Danish I believe. So please stop using it to refer to people using two handed weapons and heavy armor, it literally has nothing to do.


I just used it to make things clear in the game. Of course I meant guys with meelle weapons, in most cases two-handed. That is why i used that word.

Iam not going to argue about precise historical facts cause Iam not that good in history. You are right in all cases but, you want to make feudal simulator, not a feudal playable game. When we want simulator, like you are saying, lets make one shot kills, cause that is the way it use to be in feudal ages.
We cant make plate simply bounce off enemys arrows because thats the way it was. Realism is not playable. Right now plate armors scale armors, chainmail armors are pretty balanced in my opinion. You can counter them but there is no way of countering archer. He can shot on lancers, he will succed, he can shot infatry, he will succed. Only way to counter archer is to have another archer and thats not balanced.


In general, just adding time required to shoot or to be able to run away after that shot will not solve the problem - it will only make it a bit more difficult for archers, but the principle of "running away whenever he gets too close, get some distance back, fire again" will still work.


This is the point of skilled based game. Right now holding down W and SHIFT button know everybody. Fire some shots and then again or get on horse is not combat. If the archer have to aim some time and find the right moment to shot and when they move they have to aim again. It will be difficult for them and if they can do it even if it is this difficult then the player is very skilled. He know when to shot when to stand when to aim. Just like in the meelle you need to know many things to be good.

Stamina thing is right but lets not overextend all of this. That will lead to unplayable class.
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Re: OP archers

Post by FlameRiot » 08 Mar 2016, 13:25

There's nothing really wrong with the archer archetype. Sure you could increase stamina for draw so that naked archers are a little less annoying but the problem is that armor is paper-thin in this game. Plate armor is supposed to scoff arrows. Only thing that should bypass plate realistic ally should be piercing bolts. Even leather and chainm ail should convert some of this crap piercing and slashing damage to blunt. That way if you're constantly getting hit by swords or arrows you don't instantly die when arnored. Scale and plate should convert the majority of this piercing and slash dmg to blunt and all armor needs a major buff, because of how slow it makes you (not saying armor needs to be faster, just stronger, and maybe more expensive to make. Plate armor seems kinda cheap right now, should require more iron imo)

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Re: OP archers

Post by Lovita » 09 Mar 2016, 12:01



Hoshiqua
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Re: OP archers

Post by Hoshiqua » 09 Mar 2016, 16:11

These videos say it all.. archers ftw !

you want to make feudal simulator, not a feudal playable game.


Let me stop you right there, because that isn't true. If I wanted a simulator I'd also suggest sleeping being required, meals taking 30 minutes, basic houses be made out of shit (literally) and having to drink water constantly. Though some more "simulation" features would, I believe, make this game better, a full, lame simulation is not what I wish. We're on the same side here : we want to make the game playable, and I also want it to be as close to realism as possible. So let me say this for the LAST time (I've said it a lot on these forums). Game is NOT something in which realism is always bad and fun killing. It is not always lame, and what it does is that it increases immersion a great deal, which is HUGELY important for the kind of the game this is trying to be.

Now that I've justified myself for the 13th time..

There's nothing really wrong with the archer archetype.


How can you say that ? It's the only "archetype" that allows you to kill potentially 5 to 10 people without taking any damage if you're good enough. The skill ceiling is extremely high, yet it is not balanced around that. You can still do HUGE damage and be VERY cost effective if you're a bad archer.

On the contrary, you get rekt if you're bad in melee as an infantry of any kind, and no matter how good you are, you'll never get out of a 1 v more than 2 - 3 fight if the ones you're up against know at least a bit what they are doing and are not using weapons that do nothing to you through your armor (which is rarely the case).

That's something I really don't understand about their design : they don't want to push the skill ceiling up for melee nearly as high as Mount & Blade does, blaming potential lag and technology, but they make archer the ultimate class you want to play if you want every ounce of skill you have to matter a LOT in ANY combat situation.

So, yes, there IS something wrong with that archetype.

the problem is that armor is paper-thin in this game. Plate armor is supposed to scoff arrows.


That's what I am saying. It would be easy to make it historical (kindof) : Leather (this didn't exist as an armor) < Padded < Mail < Scale < Plate with Plate defending extremely well against slashing and piercing and pretty well against blunt.

But then we have a problem. Why would people use any other armors than plate ? Historically (once again), they didn't because until the end of the middle ages and beginning of the Renaissance, plate was expensive so most lower soldiers could not afford anything more than a "plate helmet". Now, how do you replicate that in the game ? In the real world, the warrior population size was HUGE compared to the population and location of plate makers, so yes it was scarce.. for a time. Plate became cheap not only because means of production greatly increased, but also because people had spent hundreds of years giving the armor to their descendant or looting it from their victim if they had one, so the number of them in circulation automatically increase, while the population didn't increase nearly as much (speaking of factors here, not absolute value).

So unless we find a way, the same thing will happen within the game world, and MUCH faster as everyone, virtually, will be able to be plate makers.

I posted many ideas about how that could be solved, but that's not the subject here : how would that solve the problem of archers being too powerful ? Most people would still have to deal with arrows the same way.

Even leather and chainmail should convert some of this crap piercing and slashing damage to blunt


Now that's a good idea ! I did write a document about how damage should work so that you don't actually die from thousands of small scratches (which doesn't make sense). It's not been updated for a while so here's my current idea, in a nutshell :

Base damage = Damage that would be dealt with the current system WITHOUT counting the hit location factor (so no bonus for hitting the head), as it needs to be applied to the REAL damage amount.

Basically, if Base Damage is under 10 - 15, it is multiplied by 0.8 if it is piercing and then applied as blunt. The blow "glances of" the armor.

If Base Damage is higher than that, then the amount remains the same, except that piercing damage will now only have 130% of it converted to blunt. Slashing remains at 100%. The blow "dents" the armor.

If Base Damage goes higher than say, 40, then the armor is "penetrated". Here what happens :

All damage above a certain variable number we'll call "Threshold" (let's say 40 as an example) does NOT get converted to blunt. It is applied as normal, AND "converts" one point of damage that's under 40, to slash / pierce.

So if I take 50 slashing / piercing damage, in reality I'll take 30 blunt and 20 slashing / piercing.
If I take 60 slashing / piercing damage I'll take 20 blunt and 40 slashing /piercing.

So that means, WITHOUT the hit location factor in (remember the "Base Damage" definition) then the maximum amount of damage you can take on an individual body part is 80 slashing / piercing (with a Base Damage of 80 for both.. which is almost impossible to achieve when hitting someone in any kind of armor, especially for piercing).


"Hit location" being the damage multiplier from hitting a certain body part (above 1 for head, under 1 for arms and legs I think), so it will still be very much possible to one - shot someone that isn't wearing any kind of armor.

To compensate for general lower base damage you can squeeze out of piercing weapons (maybe it could be lowered even further in this design), the hit location factor could be multiplied by like 1.8 or something like that, so that the damage you get out of an arrow or a spear is very reliant on where you hit with it (huge damage is taken if you make an arrow penetrate through someone's head, very low if it is in his leg or arms).

Threshold should definitely be lower than that if you ask me, but I hope you guys get the idea.

About blunt damage :

Firstly to compensate for all of the extra blunt damage that everyone is gonna take, make it so that it affects hard HP only if it breaks a bone or hits you in the head.
Also, weapons that do blunt by default would never penetrate armor obviously, but they would gain a 1.5 multiplier to the damage if the armor is dented.

On the topic of archers, that would make arrows either very deadly or near to inoffensive if you're wearing heavy armor, without making those armors too strong against melee weapons which have higher base damage. Archers would still be in a dominant position in terms of surviving an encounter (they could still as easily run away) but at least they'd have very little chances of shooting down someone using full plate / scale, and would see their effectiveness against mail whittled down, so they would either have to risk going into melee (for once !) and allow the opposing player to have a chance at using his skills, at the expense of some stamina because of the heavier armor, or they'd have to flee.

*Looks at preview* gotta love them walls of text !


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Re: OP archers

Post by Toren » 10 Mar 2016, 03:53

I think the road to having a properly balanced game starts with perception of how the archer class really should be versus how it currently is. People like to see it as a front line class, while it should really be a support class, whittling down forces from behind walls and infantry. Instead, with the combined obscene damage dealt out and the incredible mobility of the archer class, it can dominate any other class, even in close quarters combat.

As Hoshiqua mentioned, the damage done by archers compared to the amount of skill it requires to actually hit an enemy is just silly. This combined with the super fast firing speed and low weight of arrows makes for an inherently popular and overpowered class. I ask a lot of people who say archer isn't overpowered what the counter to archer is, and they say other archers. And frankly, archers are currently the only counter to other archers. Horsemen and shield infantry are not able to counter archers or at least stall archers as well as they should be able to. As far as the skill ceiling goes for archers, I would say it is actually lower than most other classes after having tried them all out. And considering the low learning curve for archers, many people can at least be good, if not great archers, withing a relatively short amount of time.

The other issue is the insane kiting that requires next to no skill to do. The kiting i'm talking about is the one done by going out of combat immediately after hitting/firing, and potential solutions have been suggested here: http://lifeisfeudal.com/Discussions/que ... y-function

The kiting applies to all classes except horsemen, and annoys me about as much as archery does. However, I believe this is just an oversight of an exploit rather than an actual mechanic that I hope the devs will patch soon.

At the core of it all, people seem to forget that there are five intended "branches" to go down for combat; and that like crafting, people should evenly disperse down the separate paths to create a diverse and enjoyable game. When only one of these paths is viable, the game becomes stale and the fact that melee mechanics are even in the game becomes pointless. I personally want to see the game thrive after all the time I've put into learning the different combat mechanics, but honestly if these issues aren't addressed I don't see the game living up to its potential.

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Re: OP archers

Post by Sleep » 10 Mar 2016, 12:38

Possible solution to discourage hit'n'run is to disable switching from war stance to peaceful mode until you have full soft stamina.

There should be stamina drain while drawing a bow and aiming (e.g. 15Sstam per second for longbow and 10 for short bow, 12 for composite, etc). That would make archery more realistic and balanced.

And maybe stamina should not regenerate all the time. For example: player in war stance starts to regen stamina after 1 second of inactivity (walking or standing, not doing other actions) and regeneration stops if player is running or blocking, attacking, etc.


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Re: OP archers

Post by Toren » 16 Mar 2016, 15:25

Anyone test out what effect the patch today had on archery? Something about tweaking ranged weaponry as well as speeding up in combat sprint speed.

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Re: OP archers

Post by Pajkazed » 25 Mar 2016, 21:54

Still same... :cry:
Hit run hit run hit run hit run... :bad:
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Re: OP archers

Post by Khan- » 25 Mar 2016, 22:30

that's why there are horsemen...
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Re: OP archers

Post by Jairone » 26 Mar 2016, 03:47

I think there are many good points here.

First, plate armor is not weak against piercing. At least, not from normal bows. Crossbows and pikes, sure. However, the first thing I think needs to happen is a small damage value buff across the board. Why? Because being naked or in light armor should really hurt if you get hit.

Now, the second thing that needs to happen is to change armor. A slightly lower value for cloth than we currently get, but higher values on heavier armor. Additionally, it would be great to see anything below medium-heavy weapons have a high deflect chance off plate (aka, when you hit plate armor with an arrow it doesn't puncture very well, but with an arbalest it goes through.) This would be a lot of extra work though, so just a much higher armor value would be a good compromise. A plate wearer being hit by arrows should be hurt a little, but not by much.

The third thing needs to be massive boosts to how strength works for mitigating equipment weight. It should also have a completely unencumbered threshold. A fully armored person (not in tourney plate) can move at virtually full speed. They just can't keep it up forever.
On that note, change it entirely. Make it take hard stamina, rather than moving slower. Just take the current formula, apply a HS drain effect to moving while encumbered instead of a speed debuff, and make us rest a little more often. It'd be much better than this, and also give motivation to take off the armor when you don't need it! Which then leads to a world where people want clothes as well as armor!

The fourth thing needs to be movement changes to backpedaling (no more than 70% move speed) and to using a bow (make the randomness much more aggressive when moving, with a delay when you stop to return to a less punishing random area of attack.)

Finally, bow spam needs to be reduced as many have said (longer draw time, ideally at least 6 seconds.) Realistically, getting an arrow out, fitted, and drawn takes at least that long. There may be exceptions to the rule... but they were rare!

Take all that, and then we are talking about ranged not being the only game in town.

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Re: OP archers

Post by Styxwash » 27 Mar 2016, 12:13

I don't hear anyone talking about using a shield to counter archers? Can't be bothered to equip one?

Rather people whine and want plate buffed so they can keep their 2h and rush archers with no risk. Please!

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Re: OP archers

Post by Hanz_knife » 27 Mar 2016, 13:58

Styxwash wrote:I don't hear anyone talking about using a shield to counter archers? Can't be bothered to equip one?

Rather people whine and want plate buffed so they can keep their 2h and rush archers with no risk. Please!

lol, have you ever tried it this way? If you want i can tell you which server you can join and i will gladly watch how you will get rid of the archers lets say they will not penetrate your defensive equipment (highly doubt it), how are you gonna kill that archers if you just cant catch them? Can you tell me how? Let me say it again: we don´t want to have useless archers, we want proper archers, vital at combat for supporting you, vital to both offense and defense, but no freakin kings of the battlefield! Its not about fullplate berserkers. I! myself tried every possible way to counter the archers (and yes, shields too) and there is only one: lancing. But its too risky and still good archers can kill you or your horse pretty easily. Stone, paper, scissors is broken!
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Re: OP archers

Post by Styxwash » 28 Mar 2016, 14:29

Well tower shields hold up to arrows very well and it's hard to hit someone with a tower shield up, almost impossible at longer ranges.

Have that shield wearer or multiple shield wearers push the archers location and they are effectively countered. You might not kill them, but you will force them to change location.

Believing that a melee oriented character should be able to counter, as in killing, a archer on a wall, is simply silly.

Believing that you should be able to be successful in group tactics without using archers, is also silly.

When people say you need archers to counter archers, it's a pointer towards the fact that they are just as essential as melee characters in group tactics, since archers can't hold ground without them.

Believing that you have to balance ranged vs. melee is stupid, its about balancing group combat where both "classes" appear on both sides.


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Re: OP archers

Post by Hoshiqua » 28 Mar 2016, 17:30

You don't understand the point here. We're not talking about how good everyone is at taking or holding ground (archers are actually the best at holding fortified ground BTW.. and they can always switch to a one handed weapon, they're very powerful), but how much "raw power" they have and the skill required to use that raw power. The skill needed to kite and shoot is VERY low, maybe a bit higher depending on the speed of the pursuer and yours. But bows are just like hammers - you can be sure you'll kill anyone in a few hits. I consider the hammers to be OP, so arrows.. just shoot from a wall or a distance, 0 risks taken, 0 commitment - you can just flee whenever you want. And unless you're defending your home, loosing or gaining ground is meaningless, except also in large scale battles but that will never happen in YO.

The running and shooting mechanics are just way too soft and smooth to create a realistic pursuing or a balanced archer vs infantry gameplay. You can't just turn around in 1 second and keep your speed, you can't stop running at full speed, get an arrow, draw a bow and properly aim and shoot. Still, that's the case in the game, and no matter what tweaks are done to armor values, arrow values.. they will always be unbeatable unless you got cavalry or more archers.

Mount and blade did it well - archers are very OP in my opinion even in that game, but at least, since there's no "inventory" per say in that game, archers can't carry 30 arrows on their back and 200 more in their space time breaking pockets. They are quick to run out of ammo, and THAT is where shields counter them - they either risk running out of ammo on a shield or they have to not even try shooting and go melee / away.

My suggestion to make plate armor strong against them would change the design quite a bit, yea. Two handers would be a good counter to archers, as they were in history (late middle ages). Archers would basically be a counter to anyone wearing light armor (some cavalry, spearmen and other archers basically) and not be so good against heavy armor. Crossbowmen would be better for that. But then they don't have a huge rate of fire and they have to stop too long to be able to really kite anybody, so it's fair.

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Re: OP archers

Post by Styxwash » 28 Mar 2016, 19:38

I don't see how two handers could be a counter to archery. That's some strange game balance.

Your saying that plate armors can take multiple bow hits in reality?
Cause that's silly, longbows used correctly could easily penetrate plate armor.

Of course archers hold fortified ground easily, but on open ground they obviously have to kite when a shield user pushes them back. You can't siege a fortress without using both melee and archery.

Since I actually want to see a greater combat balance, maybe boosting shields would help. Perhaps scale armor could get 10-20% more piercing resistance to make it what plate is vs. slashing atm.

You wan't archery to be a support option only, making them fully dependent on melee, but you fail to see that melee and ranged already compliment each other pretty well.


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Re: OP archers

Post by Hoshiqua » 28 Mar 2016, 21:26

Your saying that plate armors can take multiple bow hits in reality?
Cause that's silly, longbows used correctly could easily penetrate plate armor.


If you do some research (and by research I don't mean watch some nonsense, history and physics breaking american "document"), you'll see that arrows were stopped even by mail alone sometimes (not bodkins), and everything just stucked into the plate. There's even a report of a cavalry charge against archers where the leader (the guy in front) was taken prisoner during HYW.. I mean, hell, how do you even expect a ~0.1 grams pointy projectile to go through a layer of COLD TEMPERED STEEL, a layer MAIL, and a layer of GAMBESON ? Except if the arrow is going impossibly fast that's simply not possible. If anyone in plate ever died to arrows, it's because it went through a weak point (like the side of the visor, armpits, groin..) or, even if that's really unlikely, through the eye hole(s) of the helmet.

That's some strange game balance.


How so ? Armor makes you almost impregnable to arrows and some bolts, so you'd not need a shield and could use the high dps against archers. Having a shield and one hander vs one hander alone is not so great of an advantage. Having a two handed weapon against a one handed, on the other hand..

but on open ground they obviously have to kite when a shield user pushes them back.


No. I would use my sidearm and defend myself if it's not crazy doing so, and not loosing ground is important. Parrying can also deflect damage, you know :D

Since I actually want to see a greater combat balance, maybe boosting shields would help. Perhaps scale armor could get 10-20% more piercing resistance to make it what plate is vs. slashing atm.


That will just make it so an archer takes longer to kill people, but it doesn't prevent him from endlessly kiting the guy. And what prevents them from just taking a sword so that they slash through the scale ? As I said, simple tweaks won't do the job.

You wan't archery to be a support option only, making them fully dependent on melee, but you fail to see that melee and ranged already compliment each other pretty well.


I don't actually.. If I wanted archers to be a support class (which they should be), it IS because I think they have to complement infantry.

What I don't want is having a whole skill tree that allows you to fight people without giving them a chance to use their skill, and just die on the spot. It breaks any kind of skill base and any spirit of competition. It's like if a spearman could just look at a cav and automatically have him dismounted with his horse dead whenever he got too close. No, they have to bother aiming with the spear and sometimes the cavalry actually reaches them - there is a "clash" between the players. I don't see why that shouldn't apply for archers if they're alone : either flee or keep shooting so that the guy may be soft enough you can take him in melee. Right now archer is the class for those who want to win without bothering training themselves for reactions and strategy needed for melee.


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Re: OP archers

Post by Jairone » 30 Mar 2016, 02:55

Basically, the problem at this point is there is zero reason not to roll every single character as an archer with very little melee capability.

Simply put, nobody can get to the archers to melee, so there's no reason to have melee.

Shields, if they completely absorbed arrows with a very low loss of durability, would help... but since you can't catch them anyway they can just run away. Which results in a never ending cycle of arrow and shield use.

A longbow or composite bow can pierce plate, yes. However, the bows with enough weight on the draw to do so required a fairly strong person. If they adjusted these items to require at least 30 strength, then that might be a fair balance on them for piercing plate. Historically, however, very few archers fit into that category.

Which is why crossbows, polearms like pikes, lances, and halberds, crushing weapons like maces and flails, and piercing hammers like Bec de Corbin and Picks were used. Because unless you worked for the chink, those were the weapons that beat plate. Other weapons were for dealing with the less protected troops.

Of course, if you don't look at history and instead base your judgment off Hollywood...

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Re: OP archers

Post by Styxwash » 30 Mar 2016, 09:50

Jairone wrote:A longbow or composite bow can pierce plate, yes. However, the bows with enough weight on the draw to do so required a fairly strong person. If they adjusted these items to require at least 30 strength, then that might be a fair balance on them for piercing plate. Historically, however, very few archers fit into that category.

Hmm, you do know that if you want to use the longbow properly, you need 60 strength and 60 agility. This means no extra hit points, stamina or carry weight.
Hoshiqua wrote:If anyone in plate ever died to arrows, it's because it went through a weak point (like the side of the visor, armpits, groin..) or, even if that's really unlikely, through the eye hole(s) of the helmet.

It's true that plate armor could take alot of arrow punches, but at shorter range and against proper penetration arrows, the injury would start to add up, blunt force does matter at this point. Also, we can't have so detailed hitboxes as to include weak points, so piercing damage represents these kind of attacks at the openings in armor etc.
I agree that bodkin arrows might be abit too effective against plate, but atm. game is balanced towards Scale armor being thecounter to piercing/ranged and plate being the slashing/melee king.
Plate could use abit more resistance considering it's huge drain on speed.
Hoshiqua wrote:I don't actually.. If I wanted archers to be a support class (which they should be), it IS because I think they have to complement infantry.

Still you keep making examples based on 1v1 tactics. If one side in a skirmish only has melee, they will be at a huge disadvantage and they should be.
You also seem to think very narrow with your setup, many players use throwing weapons to counter archers at medium range. It's also very relative to the servers skill cap, since some archers will run with full plate and a 2h for melee. MMO will feature laxer skill trees as well, you know.


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Re: OP archers

Post by Toren » 30 Mar 2016, 17:41

Doesn't stop the fact that as bowmen currently are, no formation will ever be effective. There is little to no reason to even try and get into formation when archers can kite you forever and hit weak spots with the ridiculous accuracy that the bows have. If nothing is changed, then the hit and run tactics will continue into the MMO, and there will be no reason to run anything except archer.

As far as throwing weapons go, they weigh much more and as a whole do less damage and are less reliable than bows. Not exactly a good example of an archer counter. Javelins don't deal that much damage, but are more for opening up attacks and killing people who are fleeing in armor. Axes can do a bit more damage to nakeds, but at the range an archer is at and the speed they fly, you'd have to be blind to not be able to dodge them. The knives fall into the same category as the javelins. And naphtha pots are pretty heavy and costly, and are mostly for anti heavy armor.


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Re: OP archers

Post by Jairone » 31 Mar 2016, 18:50

Yeah, and the longbow is fine at that. There's still a lot of adjustment to be made on other items though!

Another possibility (just another idea) is to make unwieldy weapons (polearms, two handers, bows, crossbows) have a sling and unsling time. This could vary by item (for example, a bow would rarely be strung so it would take a good 10-15 seconds to make ready... and if it was then moving with it could break the bow. On the other hand, a crossbow would be even slower to make ready with the crank... and a melee weapon would take minimal time to get out and in position.)

Additionally, where moving with a strung bow was very risky to it, that is not represented in LiF. Adding in a chance disarm when moving with a bow strung would represent that. A solid 5 second rooting action to restring the bow (done at the person's choice but prior to using the bow again) would then give a reason to avoid moving around with a constantly strung bow, and vastly improve the odds in dealing with archers.

The general point is still the same. Archers are currently so powerful that nothing else is viable. Unless that is rectified, the game will degrade to everyone being an archer for combat, even if that means they use a lower end bow to be viable for crafting. It's that bad.


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Re: OP archers

Post by Kael » 01 Apr 2016, 11:24

the hammers and archers are really OP in this game.

but this topic is about the archers so....

plate was the mosst efficient armour against archers, but in this game, with bodkin, they penetrate them like you wear a padded armour and its like 2 arrows and you are dead, mostly 3 arrows.

thats completly wrong and false in history.

even the hammers are not so efficient like this ingame. a hammer in RL does only a damage if you hit directly the head of the enemy, same with the Axes.

An Axe, against a medieval full armoured knight in full plate would easily say: "i dont give a fuck about your 2 handed axe!"

Because the axe would normally bounce of the plate or the armour is to hard to penetrate it.

And a Hammer would only make sense against the head, because if you hit right, you can make an K.O.

With the Arrows it is the same.
You hit an full plate armour guy -> 3 shots? he is dead

if he is on horse and charge you -> 2 shots, he is dead.

and normally if you charge with the h orse, maybe it stop because the land is about 0,2 or 0,3 higher then the land where you stand ;)


ah
and if you think arrows can penetrate plate armour easily:
look an azincourt ;)
the arrows at last dont kill the rider, it kill the horses who werent armoured.
thats how the whole army stuck and then the infantry can kill them.

An real, hardened steel armour, you could only penetrate if you have an 90° angle to penetrate them.
Most of the knights were small targets so if yo uwant to shoot them, most of your arrows bounce off.

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Re: OP archers

Post by Styxwash » 03 Apr 2016, 11:50

The thing you guys don't realize is that medieval warriors didn't attack their opponents armor, unless they were unskilled peasants maybe.

Anyone trained to fight armored enemies would go for the weak spots in the armor or try to put the opponent in a bad position (like your example with taking out their horses), but that's mostly not possible in this game, therefore piercing attacks take that role.

I still agree some balancing could be done though, archery is very strong atm. but making plate armor impervious to most attacks doesn't seems like a good way to balance the game.

That would just lower pace of the game and turn everything into a hack and slash slug-out.


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Re: OP archers

Post by Kael » 03 Apr 2016, 14:08

That means that 99,9% of the soldiers on the battlefield were experienced soldiers who exactly know.

Also very much of the fightings were battles in formations where you get the most information from.

Normal Duell Situations were mostly unfair.
Also you have texts were knights get hit more than 6 times, lost their horses 4 times and fall off from them and also got their next.

Even a experienced soldier wasnt avaiable to kill an experienced knight, because a 'real' knight was trained to fight from his childhood.


https://youtu.be/wKKSI1OPGa4?t=175

this is how the armours were able and MOSTLY the only thing you can win is when you get the fully armored guy on the ground.

an example: I got a full plate armour with mail unter the critic points?
you try to pierce into them? as a full armored knight...really... i dont give a piece of shit if you got low amour - maybe you hit me on my arm, but under the mail there is the gambeson and MAYBE You scratch me. But in that time, i cut your head off with my own longsword.

If you have 2 opponents, both in full plate armour and in a real fight on the battlefield -> you mostly try but its a hard to aim, even for a skilled fighter, in the specific regions.

But if you have 1on1 Duell with both armours and specific weapon for it, you CAN aim for the critical zones but even than, there is no 100% guarantee that your weapon will do any dmg on your opponent.

Thats why polearms were invented to overcome full armored soldiers in medieval combat.
They can hold them on distance while they try to push them down to the ground.

The first and only thing you do is against a knight: Do anything to get him in the ground, because THAN you can kill him really.

But if you just have spears, like a group of 5 guys in front of me, padded armored, spears of 2,4m lenght, and me - fully armoured in plate, + shield or maybe a two handed weapon.
I give them my side so i have a 100% protection and i get stabbed - but the stabbing cant pierce trew my armour and all of them will die instantly.

Thats why halberds or the billhook was invented, to get the knight on the ground in melee, because every knight can overcome 5-10 low armoured and primitive men

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Re: OP archers

Post by Styxwash » 03 Apr 2016, 15:45

I highly doubt that 5 spearmen vs. 1 knight would work out that way most of the time. Knight's weren't immortal.

You also forgot that this isn't elite knights vs. peasants, were all the "superhero" in this game and gear shouldn't decide and will never decide everything.

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