why is archery so broken in this mod and everything else just pales at its side?

[Shinigami936]

Didn't read the whole wall, nor the whole thread, I'll just respond to what I *did* read.

I don't think there's anything wrong with crossbows, nor low-high level archers. They **** everything up during sieges but that's just a Warband flaw.

Top tier archers are very clearly broken, one shotting top tier melee units is not okay. Because of the way PD and proficiency scales your damage up into infinity. But that's really only apparent for the Noldor, CKO, and Silvermists with upgrades.

My 2 cents.

 

[J.Reynauld]

It's a video game and as far as your mind is capable of knowing, Pendor does not have to oblige to the rules of the real world.

Are you a Pendor physicist? Fletcher to know how strong arrows are?

Don't mix real-life and Pendor, your argument falls flat. Easily.

made this account just to post this because reading this thread has made me absolute furious, maybe not as mad as it sounds but all your defends sound incredibly ridiculous, you keep saying it isnt as the same as in real life, its a fantasy world and its just a game, then why dont you do something about it or at least admit the current state when its proven sucks to play as a game? how is it """""perfected""""" if you can literally win by being an one trick and treat your infantry and cavalry units as meat shields and let archers slaughter your enemies? how are other tactics gonna be worthwhile while this """""tactic""""" risks absolutely nothing when compared to others?

what really gets me on the edge is you seem to keep dodging the bullet and providing nothing to the discussion. when the discussion is on the gameplay, you against it with absolutely no evidence but simply saying "its hard to rework them all", "we have been balancing them for ages and you are just a nobody who complains about things that are perfected", you are acting like everything is perfectly balanced while people are giving their points on why its not, do you have a single fact to back it up other than just saying "no man lmao"?

i might sound extremely rude at this point, my apologies but COME ON, OP was right about archers, they have almost full advantage while other two units dont, they have the freedom of range(they can take you down while they are being out of reach to you), they have outstanding DPS, elite archers are not even hard to recruit, in fact you dont even need nobleman archers to get a bunch of war machines, the only limitation will be their ammo count, but even then they can still finish things up since by the time they run out of ammo, your enemies will pretty much be a bunch of recruits now which will not be a problem at all
i feel like my point sounds a bit messy right now but basically they are just too efficient in general, it clearly is a thing and you cant deny it at this point, noldor warriors are fine, though

 

[Gorvex]

Pendor is fine as is imo. There will be always some aspects of the game that somebody doesn't like. You can't appease thousands of people when they have contradicting thoughts on what a "good game" would be. If you don't like strong archers, then amongst other mods, you've got historical ones to play with like Brytenwalda, Viking Conquest (DLC), AD1257, Medieval Conquests, Sands of Faith or Bellum Imperii.

Plus I wholeheartedly agree with lconracl's previous posts on the subject:

@OP

1. Balance the game your way.
2. Test the game.
3. Post your results.

From my own observation over the years: if 1000 peoples play a mod, there will be 1000 more or less different opinions how to make given mod "perfect".

Every player can adjust the game to his/her own taste. This is the beauty and uniqueness of Warband, that is why we still love it after so many years: it allows you to create your own personalized experience.

And here is the easiest workaround you might've looked for:

... The only way to change ranged combat in a reasonable time is to play with few values in the module.ini. Changes to the ranged weapons stats will affect units autoresolve values, which will require adjustments to soldiers equipment and stats, then world map rebalance and tests. Those activities are rather boring and time consuming.

There is constant in module.ini called "missile_damage_speed_power = 1.2". In order to change archers impact on the battlefield this constant can be:
- reduced = more average damage, 
- increased = less average damage.

It seems 2.0 is max and min I tested was 0.1.

Spoiler: Impact of missile_damage_speed_power on average damage vs distance

Example of what this means: 100 Dragon Drakes (64 body armour, all with shields) attacking double line of 100 D'Shar Ghazi Marksmen positioned on a small hill (attackers not slowed down). How many enemies is able to reach archers line?
0.1 = 4
1.2 = 11
2.0 = 25

 

[MitchyMatt]

It's a video game and as far as your mind is capable of knowing, Pendor does not have to oblige to the rules of the real world.

Are you a Pendor physicist? Fletcher to know how strong arrows are?

Don't mix real-life and Pendor, your argument falls flat. Easily.

made this account just to post this because reading this thread has made me absolute furious, maybe not as mad as it sounds but all your defends sound incredibly ridiculous, you keep saying it isnt as the same as in real life, its a fantasy world and its just a game, then why dont you do something about it or at least admit the current state when its proven sucks to play as a game? how is it """""perfected""""" if you can literally win by being an one trick and treat your infantry and cavalry units as meat shields and let archers slaughter your enemies? how are other tactics gonna be worthwhile while this """""tactic""""" risks absolutely nothing when compared to others?

what really gets me on the edge is you seem to keep dodging the bullet and providing nothing to the discussion. when the discussion is on the gameplay, you against it with absolutely no evidence but simply saying "its hard to rework them all", "we have been balancing them for ages and you are just a nobody who complains about things that are perfected", you are acting like everything is perfectly balanced while people are giving their points on why its not, do you have a single fact to back it up other than just saying "no man lmao"?

i might sound extremely rude at this point, my apologies but COME ON, OP was right about archers, they have almost full advantage while other two units dont, they have the freedom of range(they can take you down while they are being out of reach to you), they have outstanding DPS, elite archers are not even hard to recruit, in fact you dont even need nobleman archers to get a bunch of war machines, the only limitation will be their ammo count, but even then they can still finish things up since by the time they run out of ammo, your enemies will pretty much be a bunch of recruits now which will not be a problem at all
i feel like my point sounds a bit messy right now but basically they are just too efficient in general, it clearly is a thing and you cant deny it at this point, noldor warriors are fine, though

You made an account to waste your time. Pendor archery is fine as it is.

People who whine about it, complain about it, can say whatever they want. That doesn't mean we are going to change it because it clearly upsets you or anyone else.

There are ways to deal with archery in PoP. If you have a hard time doing that and it irks you, PoP may not be for you or you need to essentially learn how to play with stronger units compared to other mods and vanilla.

As a 'nobody,' it is perfected for what Pendor is meant to be, a video game with no expectations to live up to realistic fighting techniques or abide by laws of archery, etc, etc, and etc.

PoP is a creation tailored by teams of people. If you don't like it change something yourself. Otherwise you whining here falls on deaf ears.

 

[sher]

Whiners gonna whine, no matter what. Even without global damage multiplier there's not much bows and all elite archers use maybe 5, save compatible changes 10 minutes top - did whiners actually do something? No, they prefer to "enlighten" us about real history and stuff, how they did go miles in a desert by registering account and similar nonsense.

What's even funnier - they never mention crossbowmen which really shows their game knowledge.

 

[Kukost Koselig]

my dudes, I'm about  to (like right now) to start a solo... sort of campaign of PoP and did a lot of tests of the playstyle I want to do. (it started with an stereotype barbarian, but u can guess it has changed by now)

Arrows, bolts ... AND thrown are OP in Pendor? Yes! In an enraging way!
It should be like this? IMO Yes! Mofo every civilization has developed ranged weapons for a reason. Stop thinking swors and axes where supreme in the battlefields of antiquity, they wheren't. Any historians in the house can correct me if I am wrong, but even the Samurai prefered ranged in the battlefield.

Spoiler: Anyway, this is what I've come up so far as an estrategy

 

[Ldsantana]

my dudes, I'm about  to (like right now) to start a solo... sort of campaign of PoP and did a lot of tests of the playstyle I want to do. (it started with an stereotype barbarian, but u can guess it has changed by now)

Arrows, bolts ... AND thrown are OP in Pendor? Yes! In an enraging way!
It should be like this? IMO Yes! Mofo every civilization has developed ranged weapons for a reason. Stop thinking swors and axes where supreme in the battlefields of antiquity, they wheren't. Any historians in the house can correct me if I am wrong, but even the Samurai prefered ranged in the battlefield.

Spoiler: Anyway, this is what I've come up so far as an estrategy

wtf did i just read? every civilization developed spears too, but they suck ass in warband. Also reality wise bows are **** vs plate (yet they shred it in warband).

Archery being powerful isny a pendor only thing it is op in native too, discussing about its balance is just fine but you people need to calm down. The devs gave us an easy way to nerf archery on our own so if it bothers you that much just change a number on a text file or download morghs editor and tweak the mod to your taste theb post it as a submod so others can give you tips about balance and stuff (or dont post it and keep complaining about the devs balance like and angry fan  )

 

[Wyzilla]

my dudes, I'm about  to (like right now) to start a solo... sort of campaign of PoP and did a lot of tests of the playstyle I want to do. (it started with an stereotype barbarian, but u can guess it has changed by now)

Arrows, bolts ... AND thrown are OP in Pendor? Yes! In an enraging way!
It should be like this? IMO Yes! Mofo every civilization has developed ranged weapons for a reason. Stop thinking swors and axes where supreme in the battlefields of antiquity, they wheren't. Any historians in the house can correct me if I am wrong, but even the Samurai prefered ranged in the battlefield.

Spoiler: Anyway, this is what I've come up so far as an estrategy

And as a history nerd and studying history that's a load of **** that doesn't understand history in the slightest. Against contemporary quality armor missile weapons are useless. Bows in the mid bronze age are completely incapable of piercing the bronze plate armor of the Mycenaeans or the bronze/leather scale armor of the Egyptians and Hittites (along with being impregnable against thrown missiles too). Or in Eurasia in the 9th century, pretty much all weapons besides a lucky shot in the ventail covering the face of Roman and Persian catraphracts will fail to accomplish anything - the only effective way to fell them is to get them on the ground and pull off their armor or wait till they die of heat stroke (Alexios I Komnenos had three lances broken upon him without notable injury in battle against the Normans; couched strikes which deliver far more energy that typical of missiles). Then shifting to times more relevant to Pendor, archery and crossbows in 14th and 15th century warfare has nothing to do with inflicting casualties on heavy infantry. Barely any knights at Crecy or Azincourt sustained serious wounds from the literal sheets of arrow fire and were instead cut down by the men at arms in melee or taken prisoner and executed later due to fear of revolt.

Unless you're a poor man with munition armor, arrows aren't much of a threat to you. Missile weapons aren't about killing the enemy, it's about suppressing them, lowering unit cohesion, and destroying the morale of the enemy. Only the poorly equipped are in mortal danger, but even then if the enemy so much as knocks the wrong kind of arrowhead it won't even penetrate a simple gambeson (bodkins for example do nothing but inflict blunt force trauma as they are incapable of penetrating layered linen like broadheads).

Furthermore the preeminent unit in premodern warfare was cavalry (and sorta still is). The only times horses fail to overwhelm infantry (missiles or not) is either when terrain favors the infantry or the cavalry is suffering from crippling stupidity (attributable to most French failures in the middle ages due to feudal structure found wanting for professionalism). Otherwise cavalry will simply plow through the enemy with abandon. Or in the case of super-heavy cavalry like War Elephants, crush pike walls with head-on charges. The limitations preventing total cavalry supremacy in the premodern world were one of mental defects of the commanders or logistics, not much else.

Furthermore the main way that missiles injure cavalry of the 14-15th century era is by shooting out their horses, causing massive trauma upon striking the ground at high speeds and momentum, which is why the French suffered so poorly at both Crecy and Azincourt. The English Archer not only is vastly hyped for their usefulness (along with overshadowing the importance of the English billman or man at arms in ensuring that said archers are not simply erased in a charge), but ignoring that the English dominated that period of the Hundred Years War due to sheer tactical brilliance/rank incompetence of the enemy.

 

[Pacific_Salmon]

@Wyzilla, I agree with your assessment.

However, what you are describing are large pitched battles that were actually quite infrequent, when you consider the amount of armed conflict taking place.  And you seem to be referencing a lot Western European History (nothing wrong with that obv, but just saying).

As a history nerd myself (mostly knowledgeable about Easter Europe), I can say that the amount of large pitched battles is rather small.

Sometimes, you get decades between major battles.

Keep in mind that the number of small skirmishes that took place was probably very large, but historians probably did not know of, or did not care to note them down.

In small skirmishes, there is a large advantage in being able to hit the other guy with a ranged weapon before he can hit you back.

To get an idea of how ranged weapons work in small skirmishes, one can look at the way natives and European colonists fought.  Granted, this was the age of gunpowder and natives had no to little armor, still, ranged weapons (thrown and bows) were quite useful and were always used.

Another place to look at how ranged weaponry was used in small skirmishes vs armored opponents would be in the struggle of the Western Slavs (Sorbians, Obodrytes etc.) against the Germanic expansion coming from the West. in the years 900-1200

A third place to get an idea of ranged weapons being THE WEAPON OF CHOICE, would be the fight between the Eastern Slavs (ancestors of Russians/Ukrainians) and the nomadic steppe peoples (cummans, pechengs etc.).  There, ranged weaponry was almost the only weapon used. 

Finally, if you look at the Byzantines, they too mostly favoured ranged weaponry.  Despite the Varagian guard and so forth, most of their army was composed of missile units.  Even heavy cav units were armed with bows.

This is not to mention the obvious fact that steppe nomads fought their battles/skirmishes against other steppe nomads almost solely using bows (from horseback)

The reason I mention all this is that Warband is more of a "skirmish" game than a game about large pitched battles involving thousands of men on each side.

Just something to consider.

But I do wholeheartedly agree that the "machine gun" like long bows of the English are a mythological understanding of the way bows were used by the English.

 

[Styxt]

Just something I didn't remember reading in this crazy long topic on "balance" :

As a player, choosing bows as your weapon of choice forces you to invest BOTH in power draw and mounted archery.
Meaning that at equivalent level you could be a far better commander if only relying on melee weapons (and crossbows in sieges).
In my eyes, that seriously limit my character builds and thus the number of playthrough where I use bows. 

Furthermore, any archer army would be decimated by an equivalent heavy cavalry force if not for some "tab" cheese, or incredibly mountainous maps.
You need infantry to hold back the enemy, you need cav (at least some companions) to distract/kill their own archer line.
Yes, archers are strong in MOST siege battles, but depending on the map, the can be shredded by the defender before getting into position or don't have good LoS to repel the attackers.

tldr: IMO the balance is fair as it is, I don't play PoP for "realism" but for fun. 

Just my 2 cents on the topic.

 

[sher]

It's even more - on mountain maps you need _crossbowmen_ for a long defensive fight since they deal more ranged damage overall, more armored and capable in melee. But who cares? Archery is broken, real history and so on.

In PoP Empire approach is significantly more effective than Ravenstern - throwing weapons for fast heavy damage in initial clash then crossbowmen for many heavy shots when high RoF is not needed.

 

[WWWLLLRRR]

You made an account to waste your time. Pendor archery is fine as it is.

People who whine about it, complain about it, can say whatever they want. That doesn't mean we are going to change it because it clearly upsets you or anyone else.

There are ways to deal with archery in PoP. If you have a hard time doing that and it irks you, PoP may not be for you or you need to essentially learn how to play with stronger units compared to other mods and vanilla.

As a 'nobody,' it is perfected for what Pendor is meant to be, a video game with no expectations to live up to realistic fighting techniques or abide by laws of archery, etc, etc, and etc.

PoP is a creation tailored by teams of people. If you don't like it change something yourself. Otherwise you whining here falls on deaf ears.

The bows are broken, and this is true. In the setting of POP ITSELF, the Mettenheim use two-hand swords for their armor can ignore most enemy projectiles. However, in the game, you can have 100 Sarleon longbow man kill 100 Mettenheim Forlorn Hope with only 20d because bows are OP. Does this even follow the setting itself? No. Obviously, these armors are not that "impregnable." POP is a wonderful mod, but yeah, bows are OP, and this is common sense. I browsed the community of POP here, China, Taiwan, and Russia(don't remember where exactly) people are all saying bows are OP. Anyway, this is just my opinion. I have to say that Pendor is doing fine on how different types of troops relations' (like cav still counter archers), but that doesn't change the fact that bows are OP as hell, and most people are using archer builds that as an easy win.
Reference:

Mettenheim

“Never before has so much blood been shed over such a barren piece of rock as Mettenheim, populated solely by pirates and ruffians.” – Conquistador Diego of Barclay Originating from a volcanic island far from Pendorian lands, the Mettenheim are the greatest known blacksmiths. Their ships, termed...

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潘德歷198年，神秘的血紅病毫無徵兆的爆發，瘟疫不分階級的奪走潘德王國上下的生命，不久後強大的巴克斯帝國跨海入侵虛弱的潘德 潘德歷203年，忠心於潘德王室的獅鷲騎士團冒死將殘存的王室血脈送往海的對岸，隨後獅鷲騎士團糟篡位者誅殺 潘德歷355年，強盛的潘德王國早已被世人遺忘，如今潘德大陸被五個新國家割據著，流寇強盜與邪教異端四散，而主角在一封永遠改變命運的信中知道了自己的血脈，現在預言之子為了尋求天命來到了潘德大陸 潘德的預言（以下簡稱POP）是騎馬與砍殺一代的著名MOD，雖然是個超級老遊戲但到去年MOD都還有更新，POP以詳盡的故事設定和多樣的兵種著稱...

www.ptt.cc

 

[WWWLLLRRR]

The bows are broken, and this is true. In the setting of POP ITSELF, the Mettenheim use two-hand swords for their armor can ignore most enemy projectiles. However, in the game, you can have 100 Sarleon longbow man kill 100 Mettenheim Forlorn Hope with only 20d because bows are OP. Does this even follow the setting itself? No. Obviously, these armors are not that "impregnable." POP is a wonderful mod, but yeah, bows are OP, and this is common sense. I browsed the community of POP here, China, Taiwan, and Russia(don't remember where exactly) people are all saying bows are OP. Anyway, this is just my opinion. I have to say that Pendor is doing fine on how different types of troops relations' (like cav still counter archers), but that doesn't change the fact that bows are OP as hell, and most people are using archer builds that as an easy win.
Reference:

Mettenheim

“Never before has so much blood been shed over such a barren piece of rock as Mettenheim, populated solely by pirates and ruffians.” – Conquistador Diego of Barclay Originating from a volcanic island far from Pendorian lands, the Mettenheim are the greatest known blacksmiths. Their ships, termed...

pop3.fandom.com

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[心得] 騎馬與砍殺 潘德的預言

潘德歷198年，神秘的血紅病毫無徵兆的爆發，瘟疫不分階級的奪走潘德王國上下的生命，不久後強大的巴克斯帝國跨海入侵虛弱的潘德 潘德歷203年，忠心於潘德王室的獅鷲騎士團冒死將殘存的王室血脈送往海的對岸，隨後獅鷲騎士團糟篡位者誅殺 潘德歷355年，強盛的潘德王國早已被世人遺忘，如今潘德大陸被五個新國家割據著，流寇強盜與邪教異端四散，而主角在一封永遠改變命運的信中知道了自己的血脈，現在預言之子為了尋求天命來到了潘德大陸 潘德的預言（以下簡稱POP）是騎馬與砍殺一代的著名MOD，雖然是個超級老遊戲但到去年MOD都還有更新，POP以詳盡的故事設定和多樣的兵種著稱...

www.ptt.cc

Btw, I saw one good tweak is to make low-tier bow dmg from pierce to cut while keeping the high rank bows like qualis and Noldor ones. I understand that archers are counters to infantry with no shield, but that kda is just a little too ridiculous, considering Forlorn Hope is literally the best two-hand infantry in the game. Maybe 40-50d would make more sense, this number comes from when counter-cav infantries encounter same-level cavs, like when you go Forlorn Hope against Anaconda Knights. Also know that Sarleon is not good at its ranged troops (except Laria sentinel and the cav-archer knight), in the setting Sarleon relies on its heavy cavs like the Lion Knights. So basically Sarleon long bow man is the worst among civil troops (except Fierdsvain maybe, which is a faction relies on heavy infan), and even that could counter the KO level best two-hand infan that much.

 

[Salzber]

At least archery requires some skill and low level archers suck.Crossbows are always annoying even when they are used by trash units.

 

[Camcolit]

Hi all, I might give PoP another run out but can anyone point me to a handy submod that nerfs bows/crossbows a bit so won't have to bother digging in the files myself? I remember there was one that changed damage type to cutting and dropped the accuracy a bit etc.

Thanks a lot.

Ah nevermind, it's Pendor Rearmed. Read my own post history, lol.

 

[pesadelo]

And as a history nerd and studying history that's a load of **** that doesn't understand history in the slightest. Against contemporary quality armor missile weapons are useless. Bows in the mid bronze age are completely incapable of piercing the bronze plate armor of the Mycenaeans or the bronze/leather scale armor of the Egyptians and Hittites (along with being impregnable against thrown missiles too). Or in Eurasia in the 9th century, pretty much all weapons besides a lucky shot in the ventail covering the face of Roman and Persian catraphracts will fail to accomplish anything - the only effective way to fell them is to get them on the ground and pull off their armor or wait till they die of heat stroke (Alexios I Komnenos had three lances broken upon him without notable injury in battle against the Normans; couched strikes which deliver far more energy that typical of missiles). Then shifting to times more relevant to Pendor, archery and crossbows in 14th and 15th century warfare has nothing to do with inflicting casualties on heavy infantry. Barely any knights at Crecy or Azincourt sustained serious wounds from the literal sheets of arrow fire and were instead cut down by the men at arms in melee or taken prisoner and executed later due to fear of revolt.

Unless you're a poor man with munition armor, arrows aren't much of a threat to you. Missile weapons aren't about killing the enemy, it's about suppressing them, lowering unit cohesion, and destroying the morale of the enemy. Only the poorly equipped are in mortal danger, but even then if the enemy so much as knocks the wrong kind of arrowhead it won't even penetrate a simple gambeson (bodkins for example do nothing but inflict blunt force trauma as they are incapable of penetrating layered linen like broadheads).

Furthermore the preeminent unit in premodern warfare was cavalry (and sorta still is). The only times horses fail to overwhelm infantry (missiles or not) is either when terrain favors the infantry or the cavalry is suffering from crippling stupidity (attributable to most French failures in the middle ages due to feudal structure found wanting for professionalism). Otherwise cavalry will simply plow through the enemy with abandon. Or in the case of super-heavy cavalry like War Elephants, crush pike walls with head-on charges. The limitations preventing total cavalry supremacy in the premodern world were one of mental defects of the commanders or logistics, not much else.

Furthermore the main way that missiles injure cavalry of the 14-15th century era is by shooting out their horses, causing massive trauma upon striking the ground at high speeds and momentum, which is why the French suffered so poorly at both Crecy and Azincourt. The English Archer not only is vastly hyped for their usefulness (along with overshadowing the importance of the English billman or man at arms in ensuring that said archers are not simply erased in a charge), but ignoring that the English dominated that period of the Hundred Years War due to sheer tactical brilliance/rank incompetence of the enemy.

Bows were mainly used has you said for demoralizing , permeate the battlefield with projectiles and hope that some would kill the knights but it would wreak the lowly infantry and medium and defending a fortified position it would be hell, the only bad thing they had was that a god bowman would have to train years to be a good bowman and to gain the muscles necessary to do its job in the battlefield. You mention the English's but one that was known for their power in ranged killing was the Mongols with their archer combined with cavalry.

What I dont agree with you is that missile weapon's werent used to kill the enemy and only to supress is a bit misleading , the wepons were used to kill , like the Pila (romans) , Slings(Lusitans,Celtiberos,Arabic,African etc) , etruscan were renown to kill people with slings and were contracted as some of the best mercenaries but it was like the bow they had to be trained or the life they had before entailed the use ,pratice of said weapon for hunting/warfare.

The true revolution came with the crossbow , no training required , and would actually kill the heavy fortified knights in fact the knights were completly outclassed by the latter reforms of the Swiss , but even before reforms from Filipe II with his formations the hoplites .

What I complettly disagree with you is that cavalry ruled the battlefield , the only ones i can remember are the Huns,Mongols and the bronze empires chariots but for the most part the bread and butter of elite formations would destroy cavalary like the macedonians ,greeks,romans and swiss , even earlier mediavel times there are accounts of square formations destroying largely bigger armies composed of shock cavalary.
And eve the elephants were just for shock because has Alexander the great in the Indian wars says after some projectiles to the body of the elephant the animals would be a danger to their own forces.

To be fair Pendor is a awesome game and I'am sure people could modify their own games nerfing the bows and have a good experience , I actually think Pendor could be more heavy relient on infantry armies but knigths would have be expensive and a small unit of crossbows would destroy everyone or god forbid guns gasp.