Roles balance in Field battles

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Sharana
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Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Sharana » 09 Jun 2016, 02:58

This question was bothering me for some time - how will the field battles in MMO look like? That's the instanced battles that guilds fight during a war for those who don't know in order to declare a siege later.
LiF:YO is small scale and it's hard to judge as most battles are like 10 vs another such group during a siege, big field battles are very rare, but can still happen. Not long ago I was even part of a huge (for LiF:YO) open field battle of 60 players (28 vs 32). While it was probably the best fight I was part of the experience was similar to the smaller scale ones and I'm not sure I enjoy it and the reason about that is the classes balance and composition. Posions OP, Warcries OP etc don't really play a role on a such scale, so it's much less of a problem in big fights. The groups composition however bothers me. My vision and expectation was massive infantry clashes with archers and cavalry in the support role. In all cases it turned out that the majority plays archers, small amount cavalry and 1/3 makes footsoldiers which are divided into mainly 2 parts - heavy shiled walls who act as protection for archers and light infantry trying to chase the enemy archers. So yes with 50% or more of the soldiers archers the whole battle resolves about them and by that I mean:
- archers shoot each other
- footmens either cover friendly archers with shields or try to sneak to the enemy archers
- cavalry tries to stop the mounted archers from flanking and shooting unbothered or to protect friendly mounted archers from enemy lancers

If you think that's how battles should be fought and LiF should be medieval CS then the discussion will probably be pointless, but if not then where do you think is the problem that archers are so popular and 50% or more are archers? The balance is not so bad if you think about it as both heavy infantry (plate,shield,1h or plate, 2h) and light infantry are good - they just never fight, because they are too busy either covering their archers (from other archers) or chasing enemy archers (falling victims to archers most of the time, not the heavy infantry "protecting" them). Lancers that are not very popular due to the rarity of open field battles (less skilled players in lancing) are extremely effective and can really have very big weight in the battles. Players with experience in such battles already know that and lancers are getting more popular lately. When more people start using them in the MMO there will actually be work for the pikesmens which are really good against cavalry. The only problem seems to be the archers. For me personally it's because they are the exact opposite of weak against infanry in close distance (infantry charging them), because of game mechanics. They don't drain stamina aiming, they don't need to be stationary while aiming or reloading. They are also very fast and abusing entering/exiting warstance can completely avoid charging infanrty and the warcries (even with 400 cap) make it even worse as they can use coward and can't be poisoned (argh). For me that's what makes them so popular and as long as they are very popular and 50%+ are archers the battle will revolve around archers.

What do you think can be done to limit the amount of archers without taking the fun out of it? Simple nerfs to damage, stamina drain or something else won't do it. Unless the developers like the medieval CS I think some reevaluation of the archer's role has to be made and balance it after that accordingly. Now it's maing fighting force in form of longbowmens either on food or mounted with everyone else performing more of a support role for them instead of forming a mass melee battle at some point.
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Dleatherus
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Re: Class balance in Field battles

Post by Dleatherus » 09 Jun 2016, 03:03

google Agincourt


Sharana
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Re: Class balance in Field battles

Post by Sharana » 09 Jun 2016, 03:08

Dleatherus wrote:google Agincourt

Why? Specific battles will tell me that longbowmens composed between 50% and 60% of a medieval army, in most cases even without side arm, simply running arround and shooting the whole time without getting into close combat with infantry?

Not to mention that if you can somehow prove that it's normal for a medieval army to be composed of 50% (or even more) longbowmens how can that make a game balance if among so many possible builds one specific makes 50% or sometimes more? I can't even call that archers as composite bows and crossbows are pretty much unused in such battles and it's only longbowmens?
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Dleatherus
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Re: Class balance in Field battles

Post by Dleatherus » 09 Jun 2016, 03:45

because ranged weapons were incredibly powerful, period

they were so OP and deadly and devastating in real life battles that the Catholic church actually tried to have them banned at the Second Lateran Council in 1139 - they didn't succeed because no army wanted them nerfed in r/l also

it was common for medieval battles to open up with huge bow/xbow exchanges

as in the game, archers were particularly vulnerable in open field battles to light infantry and cavalry, who in turn were vulnerable to heavy infantry and pikemen

it's the classic rock, paper, scissors scenario

archers did, and should, excel in siege warfare, and when protected by heavy infantry and/or pikemen

nerf them and you will then have players complaining that cavalry and heavy infantry are OP etc

i'll grant that balancing a game like this is a huge undertaking

i'd rather see poisons and warcries nerfed prior to any nerfing of archers

but before anything gets adjusted, i suggest let's see how things play out in Wave#2 open beta
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Dleatherus
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Re: Class balance in Field battles

Post by Dleatherus » 09 Jun 2016, 03:53

btw - i'm a geek about archery in r/l, and shoot an old english style longbow, 75lb draw weight - many longbows of the time were 180lb draw weight and i have no idea where they got the strngth to draw them!

i'm probably one of the few folks here that has actually shot fire arrows in r/l:

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not that it helps in any way, but i'm 4th from the left

and trust me - if i was to hit you with one of my fire arrows in r/l, it would hurt you more than just a little siege damage :evil:


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Re: Class balance in Field battles

Post by Uno » 09 Jun 2016, 07:06

you are extremely exaggerating the role of archery in the period the game covers. It's the XI century not the XV . Fire arrows were used to burn roofs or during night battles because their use was considered unfair when you couldn't see them. England didn't exist and speaking of "longbows of the time" is a bit far fetched. Consider that only the english armies made exstensive use of longbows and not because they were OP but because they were cheap for being a decent weapon, which incidentally is the same reason why they are popular in the game. So in a field battle these archers would aim at nothing and shoot arrows from far away, and assuming the arrow reached the enemy lines (you don't even have an idea how english longbowmen drew their bows), it would be welcomed by a formation of shields, even though the shields of the game sucked for the most part, but it's not the case in our game. In any case, if we speak of field battles, they were decided by tactics and by the melee clash and not by the initial exchange of arrows, so I fail to understand how bows were OP and why you cite ONE battle to support this extravagant theory.

Regarding the OP, I would remind there are no classes, at best roles, and the reason why bows are so efficient is because players suck, especially at tactics. To counter bowmen you need armored infantry with shield, slow and vulnerable that need formation tactics, back up from spearmen and bowmen, a general that gives order and soldiers that follow in an orderly way and you can only dream about that.
There isn't much devs can do about this. One thing that could and should be done regards the rules of engagement. What is the purpouse of field battles? If the goal is to kill as many opponents as possible, then nothing will change, if the goal is something meaningful for tactics and formations, like a capture the flag or similar, then there is a slight hope that players will start making use of brain and tactics.


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Re: Class balance in Field battles

Post by Jairone » 09 Jun 2016, 07:17

Bows are strong, and were historically... but the weakness was in terms of cost. It took a LONG time to train a really good archer, a master was considered to be multiple decades in the making.

That isn't so easily simulated in the game. At least, not without making weapon costs prohibitive (weapons were quite costly, so you didn't arm massive armies with all the best weapons... you had a lot of fodder armed with simple weapons to produce like spears.)

In short, this is something where gameplay must take away from historic realism UNLESS people actively pursue said realism. I do think archery is a little too potent for the game (especially against the heavier armors) and needs to be adjusted, but as noted poisons and warcries are worse right now. The main adjustment needs to be in the ability for troops to get to them, and especially in the case of heavier armors the movement penalties are too restrictive (I have made suggestions about changing the penalties to a hard stam drain, which is more realistic. I can run full speed wearing chainmail, and plenty of people have demonstrated similar feats in full non-tourney plate.) :x

As for where they got that strength, they were extremely active and trained for a long time. Part of that was strength training, including the use of progressively heavier draws. Archers were pretty buff people back in the day. None of this skinny person with no muscle darting around like Yoda on a sugar high...


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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Sharana » 09 Jun 2016, 11:54

Uno wrote:Regarding the OP, I would remind there are no classes, at best roles, and the reason why bows are so efficient is because players suck, especially at tactics. To counter bowmen you need armored infantry with shield, slow and vulnerable that need formation tactics, back up from spearmen and bowmen, a general that gives order and soldiers that follow in an orderly way and you can only dream about that.


You are right, I mean roles in a battle, not classes :)
Theorycrafting and history are fun, but they need a touch with the game's reality. Something that works irl might not work in a game where archer can draw his bow for 2-3 sec while running and pierce a plate armor far away. Or using his horse for hit and run tactics that has to be lanced 6 times in order to die and can be hidden in the pocket and released for full hp if damaged. It's a game after all. Also there is no "war stance" irl where you drain stamina faster or can't get out your weapon while running. This entering/exiting warstance is one of the main problems. I mean if there is infantry charges against archers group irl they will run in "peace stance", then get their bow for few seconds, hit the advancing infantry and run back a little to repeat?
You speak about formations, but weren't archers using formations too? Because in LiF the more spread they are on the battlefield (solo or groups of 2-3) the more effective they are. The shield wall formation you propose will deal what exactly? Advance from point A to point B and if focused by the enemy archers lose the shields long before they even get to their destination (because we have durability in the game and arrows break shield pretty fast if focused by such amount of archers).

The point of the topic is that field battles atm resolve arround medieval CS and there are no big melee battles one would expect in such of fights with 60+ players, you get bigger melee battles doing a siege with 10 players teams then open field battle with 30. And the reason for that are exactly the game mechanicst atm as entering/exiting war stance, stamina drain, archers running arround while aiming/shooting, heavy armor's big disadvantage against archers and so on.
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Dleatherus » 09 Jun 2016, 13:01

before a monument can be sieged, my understanding is that several instanced OPEN FIELD battles will take place

in my opinion it is during these that we will truly be able assess combat roles

hence me suggesting waiting until wave#2 in open beta which should have enough testers to support frequent large scale open field battles


in regards to archery not being used much in the 11th century, that is a greatly inaccurate statement

once again refer to the Second Lateran Council in 1139

the Battle of Hastings in 1066 was decided by archery

and as an amusing footnote, you are aware that full plate armor in europe wasn't common until the 1400's?


so bottom line is:
some leeway needs to be allowed for regarding r/l dates vs. everything you see in game
wait until Wave#2 to be able to truly assess large scale combat roles

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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Ishamael » 09 Jun 2016, 13:03

Point 1: Horses are OP atm because people can insta-heal by riding away and hiding their horse. This can easily be fixed by making horses not heal or not allowing hiding horses. Best way to kill horses atm is to forward stab with poleaxe or grenades.

Point 2: Ive been in quite a few large battles now. Nobody fights in good formations. Usually people dont put in effort if they dont need to. When people realize fighting in formations will give them an edge in large battles, the good teams will adapt and practice formations and tactics.

Environment plays a huge role in victory during big fights. If you dont use terrain its harder to win. Having people carry building components so that a group can quickly build defenses to use really, really helps. Field battles suck for heavy armor, Heavy woods suck for archers and horses, 1h swords suck for nakeds, maces suck for armor, etc, etc, etc. This game is full of little tricks and tactics you learn over playing a long time.
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Ubaciosamse » 09 Jun 2016, 14:32

People forget that making all this work balanced is hard, because you are introducing things from real life in some attempt to make it realistic while some factors can never be properly implemented, so you must ajust the ones that are implementable to counterweight the realisam problem.
Same things as these bows are the warcries theres no real fear factor in the game, the stamina/health is quite unreal also, alot of other things are not as real thus we must all contribute slowly into somewhat perfecting the game system insted of giving history lessons and stating somewhat obvious problems that are out there.
Give detailed if possible somewhat short suggestions to the devs on balancing and when we get to the point that they work on it, all we can do is hope that they will take the best out of each idea and make it happen.
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Hoshiqua » 09 Jun 2016, 21:32

I was about to link this old (somewhat outdated) combat design I had made and proposed to Bobik https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IFM ... sp=sharing

But then I saw this :

somewhat short suggestions


So I cried. But I have these files which talk in further and more updated fashion of my armors and damage designs.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16yq ... sp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HQh ... sp=sharing

Read if it is of any interest to you guys. It basically sums up all my thoughts and ideas to make the game more balanced, especially ranged warriors.

A lot of what is stated in the "main" design file has 0 chance of ever getting even considered (for example, the health system deemed "overcomplex" and too long to implement by Bobik).

A short version of my thoughts would be to balance archers not (only) by nerfing simple values such as damage or crafting costs but also by bringing in more commitment to fighting with a ranged weapon. By that I mean, where most infantry has to risk their lives and armor / weapon to do any damage, making it very hard for them to be cost-effective, archers and crossbowmen can just come in, release a few arrows which they're sure will harm anyone pretty badly and just run away, with a horse if possible, all of that from 50m. And even if they're close, they can still tap-shot, instantly switch back to peace stance, move and still aim properly.. the options for them to defeat basically anybody are legion.

To bring that commitment to ranged warfare, or at least a bit more of it, archers should be rooted while shooting (you can't properly aim and keep an arrow drawn AND move at the same time as your legs are what keep everything steady), holding the bow drawn should consume soft stamina the longer it is held depending on the archer's strength, and finally if you use "flee" or draw another weapon, the bow / crossbow should be dropped on the ground if not in the inventory.

That way in small scale, archers can still take advantage of the surprise effect and run away when needed as they do now, but they can't kite forever while taking advantage of the peace stance reduced stamina consumption, and in large scale, carefully placed archer units can be devastating, however, the second they get caught by infantry they lose their advantage and have to flee, or fight in melee.

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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Ubaciosamse » 09 Jun 2016, 22:06

Well when i said short what i ment rly was that if you want one thing to be changed in a certain way, submit a suggestion for that thing only, not like "combat suggestion" and then a list of tons of information they have to go trough with things that effect other things that they dont plan on working at the same time, so more specific suggestions i guess :crazy:
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Dleatherus » 09 Jun 2016, 22:08

disagree on the rooting, though i'd be fine with limiting archer movement to a walk speed with a drawn bow

agree on soft stamina drain for archers, not for crossbowmen

agree on the flee idea - i have always been of the opinion that in order to get the speed to flee you'd have to dump your armor and weapons
this would also give the attacker the option to stop and loot or pursue and kill and hopefully return for the loot later

one of my big issues (and i speak as somebody who plays an archer) is the use of horses by archers to move fast, dismount, shoot, mount and gallop away

though unlikely to be implemented, i'd be all for an archer not being able to use a horse within 3 minutes of having been in combat stance

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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Ubaciosamse » 09 Jun 2016, 22:10

http://lifeisfeudal.com/Discussions/que ... ee-ability
See :crazy:
Made if after discussing it with tolik a while back, I was asked to provide a post for the suggestion page, a simple one but people seem to want to have the flee as it is the peasents.... :no:
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Re: Class balance in Field battles

Post by Azzerhoden » 09 Jun 2016, 22:13

Dleatherus wrote:google Agincourt

google Formigny
(or use the link)
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Ubaciosamse
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Ubaciosamse » 09 Jun 2016, 22:20

Only two things can be done with horse using and archers and those are, that if a horse is respawned it doesnt get his health back, but due to the design of the game its somewhat not possible and not storing it in your inventory prevents the taming mechanic then :crazy: still a problem, so for that one a visible fix with the current features is not in sight.
The seccond one can only be altered a tiny bit and that is that they cant jump on them from the distance it is now(more like siting you have to be very close to the furnature) and possibly add a longer animation of mounting.
Adding any sort of timer/prevention to get on a horse will result in too many problems.
All other fixes are limited due to the current game mechanics.

Fun fix, Get more good lancers :crazy:
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Ubaciosamse » 09 Jun 2016, 22:23

One way to nerf archers in general would be to add hard stamina drain to arrow draws/shots since the longbow is actualy hard to draw, so an archer can do a number of good shots before needing a rest or resulting into potions and similar but the potions can be nerfed also.
But introducing such a mechanic might work on heavly armored people aswell if you are very heavy you loose hard stamina faster thus needing to take a break if you are going to run far distances or similar :crazy:

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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Hoshiqua » 09 Jun 2016, 22:25

It can be fixed I think.. simply drop the bow in the inventory if you mount on a horse. That way archers can be deployed and can retreat with horses, but they can't use them to really fight. I'm thinking this should be done with all big two handed weapons apart from lances.. that would give everyone a reason to have a mace, axe or sword on their hip at all time so they're not TOO vulnerable while they're travelling on horse and thus not yet 'deployed'.

I think I'm gonna write another file about how item equiping should be handled.. I got loads of ideas :D

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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Dleatherus » 09 Jun 2016, 22:33

one other way of fixing archers abusing use of horses is to give the horses some beefed up version of the code that makes some animals run when hit (obviously to work only in dismounted mode)

have the horse stampede away in a random direction for 30-60 seconds

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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Ubaciosamse » 09 Jun 2016, 22:39

There are alot of things that could be changed by altering the code heavy duty, but we should collect all suggestions i guess on the sugg page until they are ready to implement these things, because atm its gona get lost within these pages mostly :Search:
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Sharana » 10 Jun 2016, 00:55

Ubaciosamse wrote:Only two things can be done with horse using and archers and those are, that if a horse is respawned it doesnt get his health back, but due to the design of the game its somewhat not possible and not storing it in your inventory prevents the taming mechanic then


Well tamed horse shouldn't be ridable (allowing release) as it's not yet trained, so you can carry it after taming. Then drop it in a stable. Have you all noticed the option horseback riding -> get horse button when clicking on a stable? I think that should be the way to get a horse and then return it to the stable where it will eat, rest and heal after some time.
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Ubaciosamse » 10 Jun 2016, 05:33

Sharana wrote:
Ubaciosamse wrote:Only two things can be done with horse using and archers and those are, that if a horse is respawned it doesnt get his health back, but due to the design of the game its somewhat not possible and not storing it in your inventory prevents the taming mechanic then


Well tamed horse shouldn't be ridable (allowing release) as it's not yet trained, so you can carry it after taming. Then drop it in a stable. Have you all noticed the option horseback riding -> get horse button when clicking on a stable? I think that should be the way to get a horse and then return it to the stable where it will eat, rest and heal after some time.

Ive mentioned fixes for the current code ingame, there are soo many fixes like the one you mentioned but that req them to do extra work that we can only expect when they focus on these things and i doubt that we will see such improvements any time soon :no:
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Sharana » 02 Jan 2017, 23:02

Sharana wrote:...Lancers that are not very popular due to the rarity of open field battles (less skilled players in lancing) but are extremely effective and can really have very big weight in the battles. Players with experience in such battles already know that and lancers are getting more popular lately. When more people start using them in the MMO there will actually be work for the pikemens which are really good against cavalry...


Sharana wrote:The point of the topic is that field battles atm resolve around medieval CS and there are no big melee battles one would expect in such of fights with 60+ players, you get bigger melee battles doing a siege with 10 players teams then open field battle with 30.


Still the case 6 months later and after combat overhaul. Only that more players actually see it work in practice during the 2 weeks wave 1. Infantry is obsolete in it's current form on the MMO if both sides are on the comparable skill level (in both tactics and avarage individual skill on players). Just instead of majority archers the majority is splitted between lancers + (horse) archers now as way more players started training their lancing skills then 6 months ago after they saw how big and open the MMO map is (perfect for lancing). Lancing is not more powerful then 6 months ago, it's the opposite - just more players started using it and the effects are seen. The few melees you actually need on some occasions are 10 times more effective when mounted to just bump enemy infantry or lancers to help their own cavalry. With that 100% cavalry teams are easily very valuable (lancers, horse archers, melee on horses).

Looks like I wasn't theory crafting 6 months ago, it really turned out this way and many big guilds saw it exactly that way and prepared for it giving them a head start over others who still lived in YO and were thinking that infantry and flanged mace or hammers duels can actually win the field battles for them on the MMO (needed to start a siege).

If you aim for the top - Life is Feudal Lance and "horse archery" :)
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Toren » 03 Jan 2017, 00:30

If the game was truly balanced- then the ideal makeup of any group would be 3/5 infantry, 1/5 cavalry, 1/5 ranged based on the skill point distribution currently in game. Unfortunately as you said, archers and cavalry currently rule the game. With archers being able to hold their own in close range without having to switch to melee, or being able to ride a warhorse at 30 chivalry, it makes them considerably stronger than infantry in a group fight.

Lancers on the other hand are much more prevalent now mostly because lancing is so much easier now. People keep saying its stronger now, but its always been as strong as it is now, its just a lot easier to do now. Most people back in the day didn't know how to lance because it was fairly glitchy, so not that many people lanced well. With the addition of horse bumping being able to 1 shot people, it kinda just puts them over the edge.

I would hope that they either make lancing and archery more player skill based, because honestly as they are in the game right now they are way more rewarding than melee for the amount of player skill they take relative to melee. And this is coming from someone who is primarily a lancer, asking them to make it more in depth (as well as make melee cavalry viable somehow). I have to say I HATE how the devs frequently just resort to nerfing/buffing damage values, it isn't always that simple and that is the reason the game has a lot of the issues with combat it does today. A lot of these issues could be solved if they made it require more player skill to lance/use ranged weapons.

The only weapons that I see being used by late game infantry are pikes in combination with naphtha pots, just because they can 1-2 shot horses as well as players, and naphtha pots become incredibly easy to mass produce once the herb gardens are built. Even within melee, there are certain weapons that currently are plain bad, mostly because there is only a few ways to actually fight, without much variety between weapons. If there was more variety between weapons, it would change things. I.E. the addition of stuns was a great new mechanic that gave weapons a purpose besides their base damage values. If the guisarme could trip people and the broad axe could deal massive overhead "wedge damage"(or as chiv called it cutting) through armor, it would give them more purpose- its not always just about damage values.

This games combat has come a long way from where it started, but it still has a long way to go before it is finished.


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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Sharana » 03 Jan 2017, 01:10

Akershner wrote:If the game was truly balanced- then the ideal makeup of any group would be 3/5 infantry, 1/5 cavalry, 1/5 ranged based on the skill point distribution currently in game. Unfortunately as you said, archers and cavalry currently rule the game.


Pretty much my expectations about how the big battles were supposed to look like (50-60%/20%/30-20%) - big scale infantry fights where tactics and formations play role with cavalry and archers (not horse archers...) in the support role - softening the enemy infantry with arrow volleys, breaking the line with cav charges, flank attacks etc.
But the reality is cavalry (both lancers and horse archers) ruling the MMO, because in the rare events of siege horse archers are just a normal fully effective archers needed for a siege, lancers are potent melees, dismounted melee players are regular melees without any sacrifices.

And I'm saying that as full time lancer 9th or 10th month already since the moment I tried lancing for a jousting lance tournament we've build the arena for on a RP server.
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Oleski » 03 Jan 2017, 01:21

True, something need to be changed.
Especially with a horse ridding or maybe even can make a special hors with less hp and slower (only for working) and for the better horse you need get extra skill point.


Chairman
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Joined: 06 Aug 2013, 15:25

Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Chairman » 03 Jan 2017, 05:14

Ishamael wrote:Point 1: Horses are OP atm because people can insta-heal by riding away and hiding their horse. This can easily be fixed by making horses not heal or not allowing hiding horses. Best way to kill horses atm is to forward stab with poleaxe or grenades.

Point 2: Ive been in quite a few large battles now. Nobody fights in good formations. Usually people dont put in effort if they dont need to. When people realize fighting in formations will give them an edge in large battles, the good teams will adapt and practice formations and tactics.

Environment plays a huge role in victory during big fights. If you dont use terrain its harder to win. Having people carry building components so that a group can quickly build defenses to use really, really helps. Field battles suck for heavy armor, Heavy woods suck for archers and horses, 1h swords suck for nakeds, maces suck for armor, etc, etc, etc. This game is full of little tricks and tactics you learn over playing a long time.

AMEN


Linbaba
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Joined: 15 Dec 2016, 14:38

Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Linbaba » 03 Jan 2017, 13:18

I think this nut is tougher to crack than it seems.

Every MMO I played had a (mostly legitimate) active debate about class balance in pvp, in small fights, and larger scale fights. I think it's the most active and most discussed topic in online games.

Most of the pvp online games I played favoured ranged classes in group or large scale pvp.

I think that one thing that is missing in LIF:MMO and that could help the balance are CCs and "charge" or "sprint" type actions along with evade type actions.

Basically, I can think of two things that can help balance things out in this game :

1. Buff the melee vs ranged fight in melee range. If ranged classes could kill an enemy without that enemy hitting the ranged class once, then if the melee class were to reach the ranged class, he should have a similar advantage.

On it's own , it's a little extreme, but the balance principle is "ranged class stronger from a distance, melee class stronger at close range".


2. Those CCs, movement actions and evade I mentioned.

The main reason melee classes get owned by ranged is that melee classes can hardly reach the range class in the first place, and even when they do, they can't escape if they need to.

Being able to knock down, stun, snare, take away the weapon, being able to charge, sprint or other movement buffs should help balance the fight out for the melees if implemented in favour of the melee class.

Movement buffs to reach ranged class and to escape, but also to hep avoid being hit by ranged class.

Lastly, evade skills that allow the melee class if not to tank the ranged enemy, at least avoid some of its ranged attacks.


This can, and I've seen it help, balance out the ranged vs melee combat in pvp.

However, with this game being a "realistic" type of game, it might prove a lot more difficult than in other games to implement CCs, movement and evade actions.


Toren
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Re: Roles balance in Field battles

Post by Toren » 07 Jan 2017, 07:54

Part of the problem is with horses is that you can instantly just remount them after dismounting. However, it is pretty easy to dismount a rider even when they have high mounted fighting mastery. I never really noticed a big difference between 0 and 100 mounted fighting mastery as far as dismounts go, the only difference being Iron Grip.

Which gets to poleaxes. Though I've never seen it done in my time in YO, overheads with poleaxes supposedly have "a higher chance of dismounting a rider". I've never seen a stationary rider on a warhorse dismounted ever. It took me awhile to realize that the overheads were supposed to be akin to pulling someone off a horse. Which honestly should be pretty much the only way how high level mounted fighting mastery riders should get dismounted- either being pulled off after being stopped or by having the horse killed from underneath them.

But being able to go in and out of combat instantly and remount a horse instantly after being dismounted is what make the whole issue muddied. If a rider is dismounted, he should have to fight his way out to be able to remount his horse, but should also be much more difficult to dismount at higher levels. But then again, because people can carry multiple horses on them, it also makes it so that they could just pull out another horse and get away.

There should be natural incentive for archers to fall back to their own melee teammates if attacked by melee, or to stand and fight in hand to hand- the game really shouldn't be set up to make it more viable to shoot, hop out of combat, get on a horse, and continue to shoot without having to worry about enemy melee. Also needs to be made so that it is more viable to also switch to melee in close quarters rather than shoot point blank.

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