Balance Patch: design insights + full changelog

[Kripaz]

Looks like game mode specific balancing is now on full effect. Good to hear!

I think this is mainly due to the removal of the Pugio but I think a decent amount of players can agree with me that people who play him only succeed in wasting a player slot rather than actually be anything useful.

I'm actually glad that butter knife was removed, so I won't curse when i actually spawn with it. Wasn't the strong point of the class and never was.

I still stand by my statement that peasant units, even if they're to be weaker than other light infantry options, should still be a strong enough pick to give late joiners an enjoyable experience. Otherwise, you'll have to bring back the Menavlion Infantry's stats from before February 2021 to compensate for the unit now having a "ragequit if you die as this unit" downside.

If we are talking about siege/tdm, peasant classes are fine as they are. They are not supposed to to be specialized in anything and you have a benefit of getting more gold for kills for a cheap price and have full possibility to pick up any weapon from the ground. If somebody manages to perform significantly worse while playing peasant classes compared to other classes, I'd say it more of a "git gud" issue.

 

[flashn00b]

If we are talking about siege/tdm, peasant classes are fine as they are. They are not supposed to to be specialized in anything and you have a benefit of getting more gold for kills for a cheap price and have full possibility to pick up any weapon from the ground.

Thing is, peasant classes can actually be good. Take a look at the Tribal Warrior, where triple-spawning as him in Skirmish is actually a valid tactic. Clan Warrior's also pretty decent if mainly because he has the Highland Club and can choose to spawn with a mace/axe combo to maximize damage against all infantry types. And I'm sure a lot of folk can agree that rabble rushes are the bane of Captain mode.

Dunno where Peasant Levy sits, though I guess you get what you pay for with an 80 cost unit. With that said, I feel like the only time when the Sturgian Warrior and Imperial Recruit are actually a threat is if they outnumber their enemies 5:1, which realistically won't happen in Skirmish.

 

[aLiaXXXanger]

Once again I want to thank you @NIN3 and all TW team for the huge amount of work done and wish you success in "there will be a more dedicated Captain mode balance + content update, but that is pending a little bit until we address the Rambo issue with game mechanics."
As a side note for future changes, I would like to draw your attention to the speed of the squads battle in captain mode. This is a very important parameter, on the correct (realistic) functioning of which tactical variety greatly depends, and, therefore, the depth, fun, difficulty, replayability and, as a result, the demand and popularity of this game mode. The speed of the battle should not be too fast (arcade). Otherwise, teams will be deprived of the opportunity to use many interesting, complex and realistic tactics, for example, such as: effective use of defensive formations to contain the opponent; attracting an opponent by armored infantry to provide an opportunity to fire their archers or to connect their shock infantry to the battle from the flank or rear; retreats with combat as bait or to lure the enemy into an ambush, etc.
Unfortunately, it seemed to me that after the changes made, in some cases, the speed of the battle of the units increased significantly. I think it has something to do with "Increased combat movement speed". Perhaps here it would be worth adjusting this parameter in a slightly different way: by reducing the basic combat movement speed of strong units, and not increasing it for weak ones?
But I believe that this almost fantastic Balance Patch is not final, because there is no limit to perfection ?.
Bravo? and just forward, guys?

 

[Runcop]

Hey everyone, we have applied a hotfix today, you can find the changes below. Thanks to everyone in this and the other threads, for your feedback and contribution.

General:
Increased the speed of the Sergeant axe
Fixed the fire rate of the Superior Bow, which was not displayed correctly
Removed thrust damage factors from weapons that can't thrust
Fixed the description of the composite bow perk

Captain:
Fixed a bug that caused some vlandian Sergeant troops to spawn without shields or weapons
Increased troop counts of the sturgian Light Infantry, Skirmisher and Heavy Infantry

TDM + Siege:
The looter perk now only grants +10 gold per kill
Mounted Archer cost 250 -> 220

Duel:
Added a Duel Sword perk to heavy infantry classes, that grants a two handed sword
All money gain perks like looter or generous lord have been removed
Added new perks in their stead:

• Looter -> Athletic, grants +7% movement speed
• Generous Lord -> Tournament Master, grants a random heavy or long lance from any faction
• Blood Money -> Bow and Arrows, grants a bow and arrows

This is all i wanted for time for some info to hotfixes in letting us know that their is work going on ty nine for the great work u have been doing

 

[SuperBroHeroFella]

So, after staying away for a month I played a couple rounds of Captain yesterday evening. I'm twisted. Hope there will be more polishing sooner rather than later.

• I noticed that a lot of sounds don't play anymore and hits/misses are way harder to track
• New ambient walking/fighting sounds are kinda nice, but also confusing, I keep looking for phantom cav
• Generally I feel I'm hitting much less things, attacking feels way more spongy and less predictable than before
• I feel like some weapon lengths, like the empire archer short sword allow for no offense nor defense, those things are ridicolous to bring
• Shock troop players seem to angle-hit me rotating over >180° very fast, often no time to react, just seems to be a weird mechanic
• I found it odd that there's perks involved like with Sturgia's Cav "Random mount" – randomness in an equipment focused pvp game is weird to me, of all the things I want predictability of my equipment, otherwise I will go for the save option every time
• You fixed a lot of gross map graphics and glitches, nice.
• Why the heck were player death stats disabled?
• Heavy INF and shields seem to dominate still and should, thats why heavy throwing weapons like the Pila should disable shields completely (like they were realistically used), to make ambusher class more effective
• MVP screen should at least feature why that player is shown

 

[RitoDurito]

So, after staying away for a month I played a couple rounds of Captain yesterday evening. I'm twisted. Hope there will be more polishing sooner rather than later.

• I noticed that a lot of sounds don't play anymore and hits/misses are way harder to track
• New ambient walking/fighting sounds are kinda nice, but also confusing, I keep looking for phantom cav
• Generally I feel I'm hitting much less things, attacking feels way more spongy and less predictable than before
• I feel like some weapon lengths, like the empire archer short sword allow for no offense nor defense, those things are ridicolous to bring
• Shock troop players seem to angle-hit me rotating over >180° very fast, often no time to react, just seems to be a weird mechanic
• I found it odd that there's perks involved like with Sturgia's Cav "Random mount" – randomness in an equipment focused pvp game is weird to me, of all the things I want predictability of my equipment, otherwise I will go for the save option every time
• You fixed a lot of gross map graphics and glitches, nice.
• Why the heck were player death stats disabled?
• Heavy INF and shields seem to dominate still and should, thats why heavy throwing weapons like the Pila should disable shields completely (like they were realistically used), to make ambusher class more effective
• MVP screen should at least feature why that player is shown

I thought I was the only one looking for the phantom cav

 

[AoC]

Shield users are so damn slow in combat. I get that they might have non-combat speed lower, but with such pitful combat speed it's really hard.

 

[Horatius]

• MVP screen should at least feature why that player is shown

Highest score that round...

Shield users are so damn slow in combat. I get that they might have non-combat speed lower, but with such pitful combat speed it's really hard.

What is hard? They increased combat speed for inf and decreased it for other troops...

 

[AoC]

Highest score that round...


What is hard? They increased combat speed for inf and decreased it for other troops...

Well, it's still hard to move in and out of range in combat with 1h+shield. It feel sluggish AF.

 

[Horatius]

Well, it's still hard to move in and out of range in combat with 1h+shield. It feel sluggish AF.

You are the only person I heard complaining about it and they shouldn't make it easier IMHO. Range game with melee weapons is just plain annoying to do and boring to watch, it should be in the combat to a degree but not more than it is currently. Also, by doing this you will nerf every 1 hander in the game, because that is something the game needs!

 

[flashn00b]

Highest score that round...

Even so, the scoring can feel pretty weird at times. I remember barely pulling my weight when playing as a Battanian Ranger in Captain and despite what looked to be very poor performance (1 kill/1 assist), i somehow managed to have a high enough score to get MVP on that one particular round.

 

[Horatius]

Even so, the scoring can feel pretty weird at times. I remember barely pulling my weight when playing as a Battanian Ranger in Captain and despite what looked to be very poor performance (1 kill/1 assist), i somehow managed to have a high enough score to get MVP on that one particular round.

Score is raw damage at the moment. Can use some tweaking as horse are a gold mine atm when it comes to score.

 

[Einarcf]

Score should be dmg to player * x,xx (unit gold cost). So dealing 40 dmg to knight is 80 score, 50 dmg to rabble is 45 score.

I think horse damage score has a role. But it should remain as is, at the very most. If you do the above suggestion, its role for score should decrease. Maybe consider a seperate category, but I understand the wish to keep it compact. I think horse damage score can give somewhat misleading information about contribution to the fight. Also, we have created the funny scenario where the system rewards you for first killing the horse, then the rider.

I think the 20 score bonus for kills is elegant. There is no difference between 1 hp and 100 hp for a unit after all in terms of killing potential. Another alternative is 10 * x,xx (unit gold cost) to follow the same theme.

But is a joke killing a rabble gives as much score as killing a knight. Please fix this.

Also bring back deaths.

 

[NIN3]

Hey!
Another hotfix was applied just now.

For the mp balancing side of things:
- Fixed a critical bug, that causes your game to crash if the Duel Sword perk was somehow added as your default perk for any class.

- Decreased the Pavise Shield weight from 7kg -> 2kg

- The Bullseye perk for the Empire Archer Militia now grants Heavy Arrows, like it should

- Fixed some perk other descriptions (some barding perks gave wrong counts for armor increase )

- We also caught a few server side crashes and fixed them

 

[RitoDurito]

Hey!
Another hotfix was applied just now.

For the mp balancing side of things:
- Fixed a critical bug, that causes your game to crash if the Duel Sword perk was somehow added as your default perk for any class.

- Decreased the Pavise Shield weight from 7kg -> 2kg

- The Bullseye perk for the Empire Archer Militia now grants Heavy Arrows, like it should

- Fixed some perk other descriptions (some barding perks gave wrong counts for armor increase )

- We also caught a few server side crashes and fixed them

Thanks for another hotfix happy to see the pavise shield weight drop, they were walking tanks

 

[flashn00b]

Looks like this new hotfix stops the game from remembering your perk selections

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

Looks like this new hotfix stops the game from remembering your perk selections

The team is aware of this and the work is on going.

 

[Sigaretovic]

@NIN3 there have been signals from the community since the start of EA about cavalry running rampant in siege and getting in places where they obviously don't belong. A fine example of this is cavalry running up stairs backwards, ending up in places where it shouldn't. Some players are perfecting this feature and claim exploits are ok until the devs fix them.

Will you please once and for all fix cavalry so it cant get up stairs any more?

 

[AoC]

You are the only person I heard complaining about it and they shouldn't make it easier IMHO. Range game with melee weapons is just plain annoying to do and boring to watch, it should be in the combat to a degree but not more than it is currently. Also, by doing this you will nerf every 1 hander in the game, because that is something the game needs!

It's classic Bandwagon Fallacy (The bandwagon fallacy assumes something is true (or right or good) because others agree with it. In other words, the fallacy argues that if everyone thinks a certain way, then you should, too.). Why it would nerf 1h, when shields are used with 1h. If anything it would buff 1h.

BTW still can't play the game thanks to battleye incorrect behavior.

 

[Qwezz]

@NIN3 there have been signals from the community since the start of EA about cavalry running rampant in siege and getting in places where they obviously don't belong. A fine example of this is cavalry running up stairs backwards, ending up in places where it shouldn't. Some players are perfecting this feature and claim exploits are ok until the devs fix them.

Will you please once and for all fix cavalry so it cant get up stairs any more?

Can confirm, the worst offender is fen Altai where the attacking team cav can get to F through the stairs and behind G from there, giving them access to the balistas at F and G, that even the defenders can't reach unless the spawn has been moved far back enough. This makes it really hard for defenders to hold F in particular.