1.5.3 RIP Horse archers

[hoonii]

Why did you even nerf horse archers and made them completely RNG while moving, it doesn't even fit the reality. I can understand other horse archers but why in the name of god did you nerf Khuzait horse archer that hard? You have to be still to shoot accurately, whilst moving its nearly impossible to hit someone now. Maybe you should've nerfed the bows instead of the horse archer itself?
Khuzait had only ONE unit that deserved mentioning and its gone now, good job you completely killed Khuzait.

 

[Tryerror]

I think they increased the skill requirement for horse archery. I played it and my hit to miss ration felt 50:50 in full gallop which in my personal opinion is fine.
Throwing weapons on horse back however are a bit to much miss, i give you that.

 

[Nonoloco]

Ah crap. I thought when they said:

• "Adjusted the movement inaccuracy for archers and made it more consistent between MP and SP."

that is would actually improve the horse archers.

I definitely agree, horse archers have been nerfed down too much in the last couple patches. They are utterly useless and it's really sad. And totally unrealistic. The Mongol and other steppe horse archer were excellent marksmen on horse back.

 

[Firunien]

i think they the accuracy penalty for movement speed is way too harsh

 

[stevehoos]

This game keep getting worse.

 

[Aprikosenmann]

Reducing accuracy increases rng and reduces fun. This goes for throwing/archery and mounted archery. Damage/draw timer are better ways to balance if needed.

 

[Hans 77]

The balancing of horse archers is going to be one of the trickiest things Taleworlds tackles during EA.

Pre-1.5 patch, it's safe to say horse archers were sickeningly OP, due to their aim being infallible even at full gallop.

The most recent patches mitigated this by creating an inverse relationship between accuracy and movement speed (as it should be).

The issue now is to what degree should movement speed affect accuracy.

I currently find it fairly balanced, but people are welcome to disagree.

Of course, I'm only looking at this problem through the scope of what I know (A rather myopic and single-minded Skirmish Mode standpoint).

I can't really say how these changes affect Captain Mode or singleplayer, but I imagine they are invariably different from Skirmish.

Why? Because whereas a player knows how much to slow down, how long to draw, and how to lead their shot a certain way, an AI bot (be it in Captain Mode or singleplayer) does not. At the end of the day, they're just a bot. I'd think the rules of horse archery would have to be tweaked or bent depending the game mode or whether it's singleplayer/multiplayer.

This is why balancing horse archers is going to be one of Taleworlds' toughest challenges, because they are going to have to juggle three different systems that are all mutually exclusive from one another in terms of their balances and metas.

I wish you good luck.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

The only way to balance horse archers is to just remove them from multiplayer. If you try to keep both singleplayer and multiplayer happy both will hate the compromise.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/multiplayer-elephant-in-the-room-khuzait-is-designed-to-be-annoying-to-play-as-and-annoying-to-play-against-and-do-not-fit-into-the-games-economy.430334/

 

[jon01]

 

[Johann Brahms]

Reducing accuracy increases rng and reduces fun. This goes for throwing/archery and mounted archery. Damage/draw timer are better ways to balance if needed.

Sure, for the horse archer himself, but that's an oversimplification. This is a case where "fun" is more of a zero-sum game than is true with respect to any other category of weapon/troop since it's ranged from horseback and the ability to fight back is largely non-existent for infantry and sometimes even other cav in a variety of situations. I would agree with Ebd that the Khuzait horse archer should be more expensive than 150, and their other units should be buffed. I did use it the other day post nerf--the change was very noticeable. While I still found it was effective enough to be annoying with, being slower requires much higher situational awareness of who may approach you if you're forced to slowly trot instead of galloping while shooting.

I also agree with the separate point that it makes sense to balance captain mode, other multiplayer modes, and singleplayer independently in terms of horse archer accuracy.

 

[Greedalicious]

Thats exactly what I've done in the past because of horse archers too.
You arnt as accurate as an archer on foot anymore while traveling at the speed of light? My heart bleeds for you.
Horse archery is the absolute least fun troop in any game I've ever played, its the dictionary definition of unfun to fight against. Id rather fight against invisible two handers.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

Thats exactly what I've done in the past because of horse archers too.
You arnt as accurate as an archer on foot anymore while traveling at the speed of light? My heart bleeds for you.
Horse archery is the absolute least fun troop in any game I've ever played, its the dictionary definition of unfun to fight against. Id rather fight against invisible two handers.

Ironic you say that considering Bannerlord has that covered depending on your graphics settings

 

[Alyss]

Spoiler

 

[Mushbeast]

Horse archers can shoot and reload quicker than you can stab them with a spear at point blank, there's so many issues regarding their balance. I still think they should stay in some form however, just need a lot of balance. Maybe having it so that once they've pulled an arrow back, their ability to actually aim their crosshair is severely limited making them rely on timing and using the horse's movement to aim, if that makes any sense.

 

[hoonii]

Horse archers can shoot and reload quicker than you can stab them with a spear at point blank, there's so many issues regarding their balance. I still think they should stay in some form however, just need a lot of balance. Maybe having it so that once they've pulled an arrow back, their ability to actually aim their crosshair is severely limited making them rely on timing and using the horse's movement to aim, if that makes any sense.

That's a problem with all archers, they can draw their bow in lightning speed and release the arrow under a second which deals full damage with near %100 accuracy close range. Maybe TW needs to heavily nerf that drawing and releasing time, as I don't recall seeing Legolas-like archers that can fire an arrow under a second fight in medieval times.

 

[Greedalicious]

Ironic you say that considering Bannerlord has that covered depending on your graphics settings

Even my nightmares are becomming real

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

We are improving the mechanics for Archery and Throwing weapons, which will allow us to achieve weapon specific behaviour when it comes to readying up and aiming. This will allow us to create more unique feelling weapons and be able to adjust them independently rather than all together like in the last patch.

 

[hoonii]

Well least I can say is that this is not the way of improving things, especially for horse archers, its nearly pointless to take it now. You want Khuzait to be competent and strong? Buff the infantry by a lot and improve the lancer(which is the WORST heavy cavalry in game)

 

[vfkaseke]

I can't really say how these changes affect Captain Mode or singleplayer, but I imagine they are invariably different from Skirmish.

1.5 already broke other kinds of archers. It was just a matter of time until they broke horse archers as well. They say they're trying to fix archer AI, and that the fix was gonna come out last week. Welp.

 

[Mushbeast]

What is MArdA doing in this neck of the woods is what I want to know.