Archer shield bearer feature (idea)

Users who are viewing this thread

arockstar2

Recruit
Just an idea I wanted to throw out here was a shield bearer feature/command for archers. Basically, half the archers act as shield bearers (providing cover) for the other half of archers who are firing. This could come in handy during firefights with other archers or approaching infantry who are using throwing weapons. Shields are generally underused for archers, so this would give more reason to use them. Even if you don’t have shields equipped, this feature can still be used to protect archers against or deter cav or even infantry attacks (when enemy cav is nearby and say, you have spears, this would be a good time to use this). I think that this would be a cool feature and add a whole nother element of strategy to archer play. The obvious downside is that you are only utilizing half of your firepower, but it’d be great to use in certain situations.

Obviously this pertains only to captains mode (and single player). I would love to hear what others think about it. Don’t bother commenting if you’re just going to lambaste myself or TW saying it’s not feasible to implement or they’re too lazy or whatever (a guy can hope, can’t he?)
 
Archers are already broken in captain so this really wouldn't work.
Also asking for people not to reply because we might not like the idea is dumb.
 
Archers are already broken in captain so this really wouldn't work.
Also asking for people not to reply because we might not like the idea is dumb.
I’m not saying people can’t reply if they don’t like the idea, criticism is fine. It’s just that I see tons of people reply in other threads for no other reason than to blast TW and say what’s being suggested will never happen (disarray of game, lazy devs, whatever). Basically, useless and unconstructive feedback. In fact, you are the embodiment of what I was referring to.

I too am frustrated about parts of the game’s current state. We are still in early access though, and hopefully in the future they’ll work out the kinks.
 
I’m not saying people can’t reply if they don’t like the idea, criticism is fine. It’s just that I see tons of people reply in other threads for no other reason than to blast TW and say what’s being suggested will never happen (disarray of game, lazy devs, whatever). Basically, useless and unconstructive feedback. In fact, you are the embodiment of what I was referring to.

I too am frustrated about parts of the game’s current state. We are still in early access though, and hopefully in the future they’ll work out the kinks.
What you are suggesting would be great for a mod or something, but for the base game I dont think this is manageable.
 
c9082873128c1302100c0548815ec283.jpg


I think this is the best we can hope for and I'm sure it's been suggested and argued over a million times already.
 
???????? what lmao
Yeah, archers have gotten considerably worse after that patch. DPS is way lower since it takes a lot longer to aim. This change affects the ai too, so archers are a lot less viable now. Also, there seems to be issues with some not firing or having poor aim as well, there’s a whole big forum post about it. What’s not to understand?
 
What you are suggesting would be great for a mod or something, but for the base game I dont think this is manageable.
Why don’t you think it’s manageable? If the game was in a better state or archers weren’t “broken”, would you think otherwise? Just curious if you’re judging it off the current state of the game (which you seem to be doing) rather than basing it off it’s actual merit as a feature.
 
In my opinion this type of formation will be eventually use in very rare cases, as the current AI will probably shoot their teamates in the back like what happen right now when they are in tight formations and a fast target pass near them.
Even when they will fix they AI, i only see a niche use when you are against other archers but in that case the enemy captain can just shoot at the foot of the one standing in front as most of archer units have small shields (outside the sharpshooter) and as you said the other reason is that you are halfing your firepower.
However i would like to see the sharpshooter use the pavise shield to cover them from arrows when they are recharging their crossbow
 
Why don’t you think it’s manageable? If the game was in a better state or archers weren’t “broken”, would you think otherwise? Just curious if you’re judging it off the current state of the game (which you seem to be doing) rather than basing it off it’s actual merit as a feature.

I'll try my best here. Archers for the most part were extremely expendable and cheap. The legendary era of ranged dominating heavy cav and large armies at this point is really centered around England's success with the longbow. Crossbowmen at this time were very effective as well but there were some major differences between the use of the two. Longbowmen, brought up from the yeoman, were relatively poor, though they had trained for many years to be able to wield their longbow at the standardized manner that they did. Their training was expensive, as in the amount of time they were raised training on the bow, however in comparison to the costs associated with a knight and his horses, and also his and his horses training, there is a huge difference in expenses associated with fielding armies of different compositions. A man trained to wield a 200 pound or whatever drawn longbow would have been valuable, but since England had some sort of system that maintained the training of yeoman on the bow, there was always a ready, and cheap source of devastating firepower. Compare this to a crossbowman. If you gave a medieval, illiterate man a crossbow and taught him how to use it, by the end of the day he'll be piercing the armor of a man sized target at 50 yards rather competently. This was a huge difference then the use of bowmen who would have to train for years to wield a bow capable of penetrating armor. Based on my quick research it shows that medieval crossbows were roughly 4 times as expensive as longbows(England). If your archer position is loss and your enemy is able to loot hundreds of longbow, there will be a difficult time for the enemy to utilize their value. The value of the crossbow being so much greater, there is a much greater incentive to protect really the crossbow, as much as the crossbowman, by protecting the man, with an expensive shield, perhaps more expensive gambeson and other armors. More than this, they are relying on range and positioning. As you know in archer battles, rate of fire, and volume of fire is very important and this is why there is little evidence of armies using men with shields to stand in front of other men firing their weapon. With a bow, a group of men can up and move to fire again. Crossbowman by the nature of their weapon is forced into a very static positioning. Men start dying, you have to step over half-loaded crossbows and swords, and you have to secure your weapon before you can move as a unit to reposition. There was a greater need to stay stationary as crossbowman then as a longbow formation so there was a good idea to use the pavise shield, and thus this is why crossbowman wielded pavise shields, and traditional archer formations did not is because their mobility was so useful that giving all these men shields would have hindered their abilities greater than any defensive benefit it would of given them.

So now that we have crossed out why your feature could/should be a feature for a mod, as was suggested, is because it is such a niche thing, except maybe in Sherwood Forest and Robin Hood, that in respect to "historicity" there is no incentive for anyone to support such a thing in Native MB. Second to this is that Valarr is probably veteran enough to MB to know rather quickly that your idea won't be accomplished by Taleworlds so your efforts are best expelled elsewhere.

Now we know historical accuracy isn't everything MB is about so w/e it would be a cool feature wouldn't it, and I'm sure a modder will do something like your suggesting. But can you think of how many steps it would take to path the AI for all the different outcomes from this new formation? That is the answer to why it won't be worked on by TW is because, pretty much anyone would rather see TW work on anything else with rigour, then spend their time on such a trivial feature, and this is why such a thing is deemed "unmanageable."
 
Back
Top Bottom