Balance for Archers and Cav

[Thexppkiller]

Well this 2 classes right now are overpowered compared to infantry.

1-Archers and ranged weapons: This right now is ridiculous for the simple fact that I tryed to push it to the limit where I can go on horsebackw with a bow jump with the horse and make headshoots constantly because the crosshair doesn't open that much. I feel this class should get reduced dmg as right now sometimes deal even more dmg than a lance hit on horseback with the safety of range. I think you should be able to hold the aim for less time and with bigger debuff on accuracy right now if someone is charing you on horseback you just draw wait till he's at 1 m and release and you can hold for 5min because it doesn't lose accuracy overtime. Last but not least while in movement the crosshair should be almost open as the screen because right now it looks like that youtuber who makes 360 jumps and more retarded stuff with a bow.
2. Cavarly right now has an insane survabilty due to horses been very tanky. I think armored horses should tank as much as they do now but the ones without should get onsehoot by a spear hit on the head as lets be honest is just meat getting pierced.2 This I'm not sure would be functional but... making the lance when couched and hit an enemy break with that you can oneshoot a person but with the penalty of then having to fight on horseback with a sword, it's possibol and quite easier than in warband as I've been mainly playing cav, this wold prevent games where I get 20kills because I oneshoot people and they can't kill my horse neither get me.

 

[Caps]

dont bother

 

[King Yngvar]

Solution to problem 1: Arrows shouldn't be able to penetrate heavy armor.
Solution to problem 2: Make horses take damage and get stopped by running into spears that are simply being held, at full speed into a spear just make them die. The rider falling off the horse should also take more damage.

 

[flavberg]

There's far better ways to nerf these classes if it would be needed to. Your arguments are not very convincing.

 

[NeoRussia]

Cavalry is not OP right now because they can be blocked, crushthrough is not strong enough and the damage bonus works both ways. Archers are undeniably broken. There is no reason why a ranged weapon in a medieval/ancient age setting should ever be as accurate and as damaging against armour as bows and crossbows are and even worse they are for balance than realism. These weapons currently are just reskinned guns, even more pronounced by shields not being as safe against them as in warband. In single player I nerfed them by giving them cutting and more than doubling some armour values. Result is archers, especially fians, still end up being able to take armoured infantry unsupported. In multiplayer, not as big of an issue in smaller maps obviously, but they still dominate. Horse archery I refuse to play since it's downright cheating.

 

[Caps]

Solution to problem 1: Arrows shouldn't be able to penetrate heavy armor.
Solution to problem 2: Make horses take damage and get stopped by running into spears that are simply being held, at full speed into a spear just make them die. The rider falling off the horse should also take more damage.

Cavalry is not OP right now because they can be blocked, crushthrough is not strong enough and the damage bonus works both ways. Archers are undeniably broken. There is no reason why a ranged weapon in a medieval/ancient age setting should ever be as accurate and as damaging against armour as bows and crossbows are and even worse they are for balance than realism. These weapons currently are just reskinned guns, even more pronounced by shields not being as safe against them as in warband. In single player I nerfed them by giving them cutting and more than doubling some armour values. Result is archers, especially fians, still end up being able to take armoured infantry unsupported. In multiplayer, not as big of an issue in smaller maps obviously, but they still dominate. Horse archery I refuse to play since it's downright cheating.

i hope you guys never get to balance a mp game

 

[Saif ad-Din]

Cavalry is not OP right now because they can be blocked, crushthrough is not strong enough and the damage bonus works both ways. Archers are undeniably broken. There is no reason why a ranged weapon in a medieval/ancient age setting should ever be as accurate and as damaging against armour as bows and crossbows are and even worse they are for balance than realism. These weapons currently are just reskinned guns, even more pronounced by shields not being as safe against them as in warband. In single player I nerfed them by giving them cutting and more than doubling some armour values. Result is archers, especially fians, still end up being able to take armoured infantry unsupported. In multiplayer, not as big of an issue in smaller maps obviously, but they still dominate. Horse archery I refuse to play since it's downright cheating.

Which kind of multiplayer are we talking? I have experience with TDM and Skirmish, never having touched Siege and Captain. What I have seen so far is that, in terms of frags, TDM is dominated by two-handed cav and infantry, which is logical, given that TDM has a generally low organization and skill ceiling, so the equation here is pretty simple: with everyone flailing around wildly, the battle is more likely to be won by those who can kill the enemy with fewer hits. Archers? Yes, two-handers are obviously annoyed by them, but you will rarely see an archer who's got the most kills by the end of the match, and I consider such people to be quite skilled at what they do.

In Skirmish, the situation is slightly more complicated, as we also have to consider flags. In this environment, archers are, indeed, a very potent defensive tool that simultaneously provides anti-cav protection, infantry support, and area denial. They are especially dangerous when they can work unassailed, either thanks to cover or to support from other classes. Splitting the opponents and catching them in a crossfire is a solid path to winning the day.

That said, archers are also not very strong if they have to maintain an offensive, namely grab the flags held by the enemy. Whenever they have to be on the move, they're exposed to the enemy's cav and counter-sniping archers. Finally, if the infantry can muster a determined rush and disable the archers' ability to shoot, it will put them at a serious disadvantage, since they have weaker shields or no shields whatsoever. How the ensuing fight is going to end is determined entirely by the players' personall skill, as can be expected in a match between small teams.

Overall, the place that archers are at right now are not much different from what I saw in Warband. Personally, I don't mind that shooting has become easier: archery in Warband took a longer time to train, so, maybe, the veteran archers in this game will meet some more challenge from newer players. What I think might help the balance is making archers' movement a tad slower and lowering their proficiency at melee weapons so that they're more vulnerable at close range, having to choose their positioning more carefully.

 

[Kräuterbutterlord]

i hope you guys never get to balance a mp game

I agree.

 

[Kräuterbutterlord]

I think a useful archer nerf would be to increase the time they need to release another arrow and to nerf their melee abilities slightly. Khans Guard is a prime example of this.
They can shoot very fast, so with the accuracy of bows in this game, they can kill most people who try to rush them in a 1 vs 1. And when they get caught in melee, their glaive gives them good clutch potential, even against multiple opponents.
If you increase the time they need to release another arrow (even slightly), taking down rushing opponents would become more difficult and would make shooting from longer ranges using the accuracy more appealing (which also will make it more difficult). By making their melee worse (not bad, but worse than now), playing archer would have a drawback. Right now its basically playing infantry with a range bonus.

 

[Caps]

Which kind of multiplayer are we talking? I have experience with TDM and Skirmish, never having touched Siege and Captain. What I have seen so far is that, in terms of frags, TDM is dominated by two-handed cav and infantry, which is logical, given that TDM has a generally low organization and skill ceiling, so the equation here is pretty simple: with everyone flailing around wildly, the battle is more likely to be won by those who can kill the enemy with fewer hits. Archers? Yes, two-handers are obviously annoyed by them, but you will rarely see an archer who's got the most kills by the end of the match, and I consider such people to be quite skilled at what they do.

In Skirmish, the situation is slightly more complicated, as we also have to consider flags. In this environment, archers are, indeed, a very potent defensive tool that simultaneously provides anti-cav protection, infantry support, and area denial. They are especially dangerous when they can work unassailed, either thanks to cover or to support from other classes. Splitting the opponents and catching them in a crossfire is a solid path to winning the day.

That said, archers are also not very strong if they have to maintain an offensive, namely grab the flags held by the enemy. Whenever they have to be on the move, they're exposed to the enemy's cav and counter-sniping archers. Finally, if the infantry can muster a determined rush and disable the archers' ability to shoot, it will put them at a serious disadvantage, since they have weaker shields or no shields whatsoever. How the ensuing fight is going to end is determined entirely by the players' personall skill, as can be expected in a match between small teams.

Overall, the place that archers are at right now are not much different from what I saw in Warband. Personally, I don't mind that shooting has become easier: archery in Warband took a longer time to train, so, maybe, the veteran archers in this game will meet some more challenge from newer players. What I think might help the balance is making archers' movement a tad slower and lowering their proficiency at melee weapons so that they're more vulnerable at close range, having to choose their positioning more carefully.

Most flags are in the open so archers can just shoot down the enemy. Furthermore, playing infantry isnt really fun how you depict it here. They are litterly just there to pull up the flag and get shot at, might aswell put some minion bots in instead of them. They cant even take down the enemy infantry as it is now.

Most archers already move slow af, but they got 2H so it hardly matters. Losing a fight just because you have worse weapon handling isnt fun either. Archers should be balanced around armor and gold.

I think a useful archer nerf would be to increase the time they need to release another arrow and to nerf their melee abilities slightly. Khans Guard is a prime example of this.
They can shoot very fast, so with the accuracy of bows in this game, they can kill most people who try to rush them in a 1 vs 1. And when they get caught in melee, their glaive gives them good clutch potential, even against multiple opponents.
If you increase the time they need to release another arrow (even slightly), taking down rushing opponents would become more difficult and would make shooting from longer ranges using the accuracy more appealing (which also will make it more difficult). By making their melee worse (not bad, but worse than now), playing archer would have a drawback. Right now its basically playing infantry with a range bonus.

+1

But having fast shooting bows and being in close reach of the enemy is half of the fun that archery offers. Sitting safe in the backline shouldnt become the norm, there are bows that support this behavior anyways atm.

 

[Tajl]

Archer nerf would be extremely stupid thing to do. Then it would be all caval

I think a useful archer nerf would be to increase the time they need to release another arrow and to nerf their melee abilities slightly. Khans Guard is a prime example of this.
They can shoot very fast, so with the accuracy of bows in this game, they can kill most people who try to rush them in a 1 vs 1. And when they get caught in melee, their glaive gives them good clutch potential, even against multiple opponents.
If you increase the time they need to release another arrow (even slightly), taking down rushing opponents would become more difficult and would make shooting from longer ranges using the accuracy more appealing (which also will make it more difficult). By making their melee worse (not bad, but worse than now), playing archer would have a drawback. Right now its basically playing infantry with a range bonus.

And then everyone would just play cavalry as cavalry is already easily the most powerful class. Infantry cant touch them because they can't catch them. Cavalry engages infantry only when they have advantage or infantry is already engaged so that cavalry can make surprise one shot kill from behind.

Only counter for cavalry is good archers and only when those archers are protected by infantry. If archers are nerfed there is no reason to play anything but cavalry. Cavalry is infantry+horse. If cavalry players likes to play like infantry he can just dismount. There is not much cost difference between cavalry and infantry.

Problem for infantry is not that archers are overpowered. Infantry have shields so for archers it is waste of arrows to shoot them from front and when they go melee against archers they have advantage. Not much advantage but advantage anyway. 1vs1 archer against infantry archers cant shoot infantry before melee because of shields. it takes 4-6 leg shots to kill someone and it is not easy to land those shots if infantry know what he is doing.

Problem for infantry is that there is not reason to play them when cavalry is available.

 

[Caps]

Problem for infantry is that there is not reason to play them when cavalry is available.

or archers (both are by far better than infantry). The headshot pierce increase was pretty good for them aswell.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

I can fix both fairly easily.

Archer. Longer draw time. Less accuracy while moving.

Cav. Improve consistency of spears. Less speed for Aserai Mamluke.

Done


Now buffing infantry is a completely different can of worms. It feels like the game is on "slowest" from warband. While removing shield health seems like an inf nerf it is actually a buff because it allows good players to win fights faster.

 

[Tajl]

I can fix both fairly easily.

Archer. Longer draw time. Less accuracy while moving.

Cav. Improve consistency of spears. Less speed for Aserai Mamluke.

So foot archers couldn't shoot cavalry anymore because when they would be ready to shoot cavalry would be long gone. It would be impossible for archers to defend against charging cavalry as when they would be ready to shoot they would already be dead.

Spears are not counter for cavalry. They can save you from charge, but cavalry only runs spears when they choose to do so. If there is no ranged threat they have no reason to do so. If cavalry have to capture last flag where there is spears around they can just dismount and then they are just as strong in melee as infantry.

For horse archers draw time wouldn't matter as much as for foot archers. They have all time they want as no one can't catch them anyway. And of course spears matters even less for them as they have no reason to run for them.

Looks like good recipe for all cavalry games

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

Spears are not counter for cavalry.

w haT

 

[Caps]

w haT

Its the same with 2h (range) and ms (mobility), mobility and tankiness shouldnt go hand in hand. It just makes units too strong.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

Its the same with 2h (range) and ms (mobility), mobility and tankiness shouldnt go hand in hand. It just makes units too strong.

Yeah. Fair. But what does that have to do with this guy saying spears are not a counter to cav.

 

[Caps]

Yeah. Fair. But what does that have to do with this guy saying spears are not a counter to cav.

Because the counter gets mitigated by the cavs mobility.

 

[NeoRussia]

Because the counter gets mitigated by the cavs mobility.

That all comes down to the maps/objectives. In captain mode sure cav is stronger than inf and can beat spears, but not in other game modes. It's also being stronger due to 4d (4 directional) polearms being overpowered currently, especially on horseback, but that's another matter. In skirmish and small maps archers are less usable too, but good archer players have no issue since bows hit harder than almost all weapons and need only one good hit to put you on your last leg. It just means with bad positioning and aim a mediocre archer players won't be useful.

 

[Caps]

That all comes down to the maps/objectives. In captain mode sure cav is stronger than inf and can beat spears, but not in other game modes. It's also being stronger due to 4d (4 directional) polearms being overpowered currently, especially on horseback, but that's another matter. In skirmish and small maps archers are less usable too, but good archer players have no issue since bows hit harder than almost all weapons and need only one good hit to put you on your last leg. It just means with bad positioning and aim a mediocre archer players won't be useful.

i always assume that all the players play rational and on the same level.