Archer/Crossbowman Athletics

[Apthorpe]

I was 'inspired' to make this topic after playing some Battle mode today. I was a Nord infantry and the last enemy left was nk_Hail-something, a Vaegir archer. I was equipped with a Leather Jerkin (6.0), Leather Boots (1.3), a One Handed Battle Axe (1.5), a Nordic Sword (1.5), and I think one Round Shield (3.5), for a total of 13.8 weight. The Vaegir archer was going nekked (though he did have a hat) with just a bow, arrows, and a schimitar (approximately 6.6-9.6 weight total, depending on how many arrows he was carrying). When my teammates and I chased this archer, he proceeded to shoot under our shields to hit our legs, and when we had nearly closed to melee range, he would run away. His run speed outpaced ours, which meant that if he never made any stupid mistakes (ex. allowing himself to be cornered) I NEVER would have been able to catch up with him. This has to change.

At this point I thought that all infantry had higher athletics stats than archers and xbows. I understood that the Vaeg archer had less stuff weighing him down, but if the difference between a Nord veteran's and a Vaegir archer's athletics was so slight as to allow 7.2 to 4.2 weight to give him the running speed advantage, the system needed fixing. Then I checked the Troop Editor. It turns out the Nord veteran has 5 athletics. 5. And the Vaegir archer? He gets 6 athletics. 6! This came as a huge surprise to me. I had thought that a patch a while back had fixed infantry athletics. In realitiy, it had probably only balanced cavalry athletics.

I checked the other stats (if you look at the Troop Editor yourself, make sure you're not looking at the AI multiplayer units), and it turns out that the Nord veteran is the slowest infantry in the game. Every other infantry unit gets 6 athletics, and so does every other archer/xbow unit. So, #1, and I think this isn't debatable, the Nord inf needs to have his athletics increased by one. And number two, and I think this is barely debatable, I think all archers/xbows need to have their athletics decreased by 2-4, so that all archers/xbows have an athletics score of 2-4. Yes, it is perhaps more realistic to make archer units fast. But balance-wise, this is horrible. There are already a billion reasons not to use infantry, but this one takes the cake.

With the present system, archers and xbowmen NEVER need to worry about being caught by infantry unless the archer has a higher weight or the archer makes dumb decisions about where to run. This has to change for the infantry to be a viable competitive class.

FUN FACT: The Nord Archer has higher STR (15) than the Nord Veteran (14).

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

Yes, PLEASE; I'm tired of chasing naked archers only to be kited after 3 solid minutes of running.

 

[Halcyon]

NO archers do not need more nerfing. do you have any freaking clue why nords have 5 athletics?? its because they are the BEST melee class. let me repeat BEST. its a way to balance it, other melee types maybe be slower, but the nord should be able to cut them up like chopped liver. The reason why archers are fast, is also because of balancing, as it is now archers have poor melee skills. If you do engage into melee combat with an archer *note i say archer as in bow + arrow not xbowmen, they are a different story* chances are you will kill the archer, especially if you are a  nord. Any of you who say archers athletics should be nerfed are just mad at the fact that kiting is a REAL tactic to win the game. Its sort of like saying the horse archer should not hit and run, and that its cowardly, when its a real and viable tactic.

Do please remember that i said kiting is a tactic ingame, and that its for balancing purposes. Archers are good at one thing which is shooting, so that means that they will avoid close combat by any means possible, even if its by kiting. The athletics is essential to that as such their athletics should *not* be nerfed in any such way.

 

[Berserker Pride]

I was going to agree with you until you said kiting was a real tactic to win the game.  I have said it before but the ranged class should never be faster than the melee class by default.  Sure if he is weighed down in mail he should be slower but not base speed.  Especially since the throwing weapons are rather useless as anti-archer weapons.  The archer shoots faster than you can throw.  I would prefer any other way to balance archers than kiting.  Don't act like the ability to kite is the only way to balance archers there are many more options that are far better.  I definitely don't want archers to lose any more melee ability or shooting power.  Also remember that if you don't take a second stack of arrows as an archer it is rediculously simply to find a shield from the first of your dead comrades.  I wouldn't say archers should be dropped to 2 athletics but I would be happy with 4 or even 5 if that was the most balanced reduction.  And if you find the loss of kiting cripples the archer class then simply make them a little better in melee or give them better damage.

 

[Maximo_khan]

The athletics is essential to that as such their athletics should be nerfed in any such way.

Read again what you just wrote

I had similar couple of occasion when i was the last infantry versus an archer, kiting me in circle and shooting at my feet. Unreachable. The "best" one was as a swadian , couldn't even pick up stuff to throw, just be a shooting duck.

 

[tylertfb]

It takes 2 parties for a 'kiting' to occur. The kiter and the kited. Simply refuse to be led around and the whole dumb situation wouldn't have happened. If you outnumber the guy 3 to 1, you guys pretty much win the round by default. Go kick it somewhere where he can't pick you off from range and wait either for master of the field, or for the last guy to come to you. Simple, unless you were hungry for a kill to pad your personal score, but you wouldn't do that, right? Right?

 

[Berserker Pride]

That leads to boring standoffs. Boring standoffs don't make for good gameplay.  Sure you can all hang out behind a wall not getting shot at but who wants to do that.  Its not like the archers and crossbowmen are going to close the distance to where the infantry are hiding and engage them in hand to hand.  You have to give the infantry the ability to charge the archer's hiding place or nobody fights at all. It's not like it's easy to close the distance on a bunch of crossbowmen or archers even if they can't run away forever.

 

[Harn]

I agree, archers/xbows should have 4 athletics and infantry have 6. It would still leave them mobile and able to move as a group with footmen, but prevent them from overly exploiting their speed. Increasing speed of infantry to 8 would be an alternative, but I'd be afraid it would make infantry too fast.

An archer should rely on their weapon range, team mates and terrain to maintain distance from enemies, not exploit kiting.

 

[tylertfb]

You call it 'boring standoff', I call it 'chosing to fight on ground that gives you an advantage' aka rule #1 of pretty much any warfare. It's the promotion of thinking like this, rather than 'run run run and attack, best person on the mouse/keyboard wins' mindset that sets this game apart from a lot of other online games IMO, and if everything was balanced out to the point where the class differences didn't matter that much and it was all just how fast you were on the mouse, I think the game would lose something.

That said, I do kind of agree that archers shouldn't have a higher atheletics score than infantry.

 

[Halcyon]

right dont try to guillotine someone over a writing mistake.

and tyler is right too, infantry doesnt have to be stupid against the archer, if you know they can kite, then just dont fall for it. Archers have the ability to kite, infantry allows this because pretty much they are just stupid/not playing right against an archer.

And there are other ways to balance archers, but you wont ever eliminate the possibility of kiting. *under favorable conditions* if you give archers more damage, people complain that they are overpowered. if you give them more melee abilities people will complain that they should not have those melee abilities because they are archers.

As for that, you can always charge where the archer is, you just have to be smart about it. if you are 3 infantry versus 1 archer you should have that game, if you lose, well it just means you were stupid about, and maybe the archer was just really good. aside from that can anyone say TEAMWORK?

 

[yeahchris]

Archers shouldn't need to be as fast as other troops, at least in battle mode, as it should be on the infantry to keep them safe from other infantry who are in close range. Archers should be a support class, not a soloing class. Not sure about whether this speed hit should carry over to deathmatch though.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

It was your own fault for not having any cavalry around or any archers left to deal with that problem.

 

[Halcyon]

and whats the point of having weapon range, if you cant use it properly, or find the conditions under which you can use it properly? their athletics provide them with this ability.

archers shouldnt be as fast as other troops? what you want to be slower? what would be the point of that? and there is less reason to have say: X ability in game mode A, but no X ability in game mode B

 

[Berserker Pride]

Infantry can't really charge charge charge as you put it as long as cavalry are around or they get destroyed in the open field.  But once the cav are dead infantry can and should be charging archer positions.  Hopefully using cover but yeah advancing all the same.  Neither of you two mentioned how camping in a building without the ability to rush the kiting archers did anything positive for the gameplay.  Not all factions have very good cavalry.  Nords and Rhodoks often have only one or two as anymore just puts more weak units on the field.  No one class should have the ability to beat another class 100% of the time by kiting.  All the other classes are balanced against each other but as long as archers are faster they will beat infantry 100% of the time.  And hell infantry are going to be plenty slow with armor anyway.

 

[Halcyon]

even with kiting archers do not win 100% of the time.

camping is a different issue? i dont know of any places where archers can camp and are unreachable by infantry.

 

[Berserker Pride]

Infantry were camping to avoid cav and arrow fire was my example.

 

[Plazek]

I should imagine that a soldier trained to run equipped in heavy armour and carrying some hefty weapons would run a lot faster and be generally better skilled at running (unequipped) than a soldier trained to run in leathers and carrying a bow (unequipped, and on average).


Personally though I rather like having a handy hidden spear. Giving chase with my one hander and the moment they get close enough for the ole pike you pull it out. Depending on your weapon and equipment cominations the spear on your back is not always visible.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Why didn't the pursuers just drop some of their equipment to reduce their load?

 

[Night Ninja]

Archers definitely should have a global speed decrease. They generally have far lighter armour than the infantry, which further exacerbates the problem. An infantryman in a padded coat is hard pressed to catch up to the average archer clad in a tunic, which shouldn't be the case.

Kiting is a bloody stupid bit of bum****ery that should be discouraged as much as possible. Historically, archers were pretty competent light infantry if they put away their bows; I believe that bumping their melee proficiencies a little should encourage them to draw a weapon instead of resorting to kiting if people got close.

NO archers do not need more nerfing. do you have any freaking clue why nords have 5 athletics?? its because they are the BEST melee class. let me repeat BEST. its a way to balance it, other melee types maybe be slower, but the nord should be able to cut them up like chopped liver.

Funnily enough, the stats don't reflect that. They only have a very slight edge in power strike when compared to the other footmen, and their proficiencies are broadly similar too.

Why didn't the pursuers just drop some of their equipment to reduce their load?

Tried dropping your armour?

 

[Apthorpe]

That leads to boring standoffs. Boring standoffs don't make for good gameplay.  Sure you can all hang out behind a wall not getting shot at but who wants to do that.  Its not like the archers and crossbowmen are going to close the distance to where the infantry are hiding and engage them in hand to hand.  You have to give the infantry the ability to charge the archer's hiding place or nobody fights at all. It's not like it's easy to close the distance on a bunch of crossbowmen or archers even if they can't run away forever.

As controversial as this statement turned out to be, I think it best describes the frustration infantry feel at equally fast archers. And as Berserker Pride stated later on, inf can't charge all the time because there are always cavalry ready to pounce on infantry out in the open. That and shields can still be shot past.

If archer athletics were nerfed, a huge tactical potential increase would follow for Warband. Like somebody said, it would decrease their ability to solo, meaning teamwork for archer protection, such as inf bodyguards, would be more necessary.

Increasing inf athletics was mentioned, but as the poster said, it would probably make inf too fast and make their fights more about running behind enemy shields than strike timing and the host of other factors that go into melee.

Why didn't the pursuers just drop some of their equipment to reduce their load?

You can't drop armor, and most of the time you need your droppable equipment to effectively fight.