MP Bringing Arrow Drop Back = Buff to Archers - An In Depth Analysis

[rektasaurus]

I want to be clear, this post has to do with precision and not accuracy.



I have loads of rl experience shooting both guns and bows since I was 10. I have even more experience playing scoped games both in competitive leagues for games using hitscan as well as casual play, starting from Wolfenstein 3D all the way to Arma 3, the absolute pinnacle of shooting simulation, I mean they got it perfect, even if bullets have a flatter trajectory than arrows. Point is, I love lobbing things in the air, and it’s one of the very few things I’m good at.



I first thought that archery was very well done in this game. The animations are accurate enough. Typically, with a gun or a bow, aim starts high and drops until you’re at the target but small matter. The sounds are stellar and even the damage is modeled well for a game. I had absolutely no complaints except minor things like the stupid decurve on the hunting bow, and the strange ways some of the recurve bows are strung, I mean why make use of that extra power at the tip of the bow that’s already there right? Khuzaits are archery dummies?



That is, until I starting trying to apply some sports knowledge to training up my skill and consistency.



I’ve seen a few charts floating around which describes how vertical aim compensation works so I’m very familiar with it, and it’s a clever bit of engineering to solve for the change in camera height, but it is all wrong and doesn’t work because it lacks any semblance of consistency where one can train the skill, and almost ruins the game. Shame.



I noticed shooting down from above my arrows were behaving in a way that didn’t make sense, they would fall far above the crosshair in an unpredictable way. I decided turning off the compensation would fix things and that’s when I really discovered some poor engineering. It did fix a lot and shooting became consistent, the issues around shooting down at extreme angles disappeared, but trying to hit straight ahead any further than 10 feet made the crosshairs completely useless. I mean I had to ignore the crosshairs completely except to get the lateral aim correct. Forget trying to use thrown weapons, I’d have to aim so high my head and body blocks the thing I’m aiming at. Once again. Any precision at range was thus thrown out of the window. No way to hit anything first shot, we need a first reference shot and hitting anything smaller than the torso comes down to pure luck. Literally impossible to shoot without aim compensation. Garbage.



First person shooting remains consistent, the only problem is my arm and bow always blocks the thing I’m aiming at. Once again. My arms would have to be coming out of my ears for that to be the case. But minor complaint. I can live with it though since your hand does end up blocking your target when applying elevation irl.



The best solution for this would be to completely redesign the crosshair. Move the camera off-center when drawing the bow (very slightly to the left please, to simulate looking down the shaft of the arrow), and change the crosshair to a Y or A shape which moves laterally to depict accuracy. You can get real fancy with this. There’s no need at at for longitudinal accuracy reference since we’ll have internalized the trajectory before the first quiver is finished.



Alternatively, let the crosshair float independently to the center of the screen depending on elevation.



Learning and internalizing the arc of an arrow is fun and rewarding. I want to hit that headshot first shot every single time on every target that doesn’t see me. Changing the angle of the arc with reference to my crosshair on a 2d screen is frustrating and stupidly hard to learn at anything other than fixed distances.



If that is more work than was done to design the vertical aim compensation, please just drop the crosshair down an inch and a half on our screens. So that it’s right below our neck area. With our head blocking the thing which we’re aiming at. Is there a recurring theme here?



I realize the devs have a lot on their plate but I don’t appreciate our intelligence being insulted. Some of us understand the game, what it’s trying to do, and how to accomplish those goals, in a much deeper way than is being expressed or being given credit.



Can I please get others, developers, mods, sp players, competitive players, to weigh in on this?

 

[KSHMR]

-1.

Archers are significantly stronger than they are in Warband and Infantry is at a strong disadvantage.

Vertical aim corrections plays a MASSIVE ROLE.

Also, archers on horseback have insane accuracy compared to archers in Warband and it is kind of unfair. Certainly this class (or the factions) will be banned from competitive just like in Warband.

Archers can spawn with shield, unlike in Warband.


What you said about crosshairs makes sense, although the abovementioned more than compensates for that. No need to buff archers really

 

[rektasaurus]

If game balance revolves around making it harder to aim at and thus hit the thing you’re shooting at there are much deeper problems at play. At any rate, you can accomplish the same goal by increasing inaccuracy.

The point of my post was to buff archer precision.

Indeed some of the other things you mention are true. Infantry are underperforming in terms of frags and what they bring to the table is literally their shields to protect the archers. That seems more like a class balance issue than the absolutely horrid way vertical correction affects archery. Which is a point I find has been largely misunderstood and not touched upon at all.

 

[rektasaurus]

Vertical aim corrections plays a MASSIVE ROLE.


What you said about crosshairs makes sense, although the abovementioned more than compensates for that.

I mean really. I would much rather play without aim compensation. The problem is that it’s impossible. Turn off vertical aim correction and spawn into tdm and try to get a little consistent. Then try going back to vertical aim correction. I think then you’ll see just how awful a solution it is for archers to deal with.

I don’t mind inaccuracy, especially at range. I most definitely mind the jank angles at which the trajectory my arrows are launched from, super low when looking up (further away), to super high when looking down (closer).

 

[KSHMR]

In my opinion archers are already very strong.

Cavalry is getting a MASSIVE nerf at the end of this month.

Infantry getting some small changes including movement speed and class changes, making them a bit stronger.

With all this in mind, I don't see any reason to make the archer class stronger.

 

[rektasaurus]

Respectfully, forgive the click-bait title, this isn’t a post about class balance. It’s about how aiming missiles works in Bannerlord and how vertical aim compensation is bad for getting consistent in the long run. ?

The arrow drop scales differently over distance with respect to crosshair and arrow trajectory. This is most noticeable shooting from A directly down the walls to entryway in front of B on trading post, or any other extreme downward angle. Say down castle walls. Turning vertical aim compensation off fixes shooting down into B but destroys shooting any other time.

It’s as if someone proposed a better way to aim a lance and there was opposition to the idea because cavalry was already “too strong” with respect to other classes.

In fact arma uses the same vertical aim compensation. It didn’t matter as much there because third person was only used to shoot up close and even then was very awkward to use. All other cases used sights and the best servers locked the view to first person at any rate so it was never an issue, an option that’s not very feasible in Bannerlord, even if custom private servers roll around. Crucially, the arrow arc is much more pronounced in Bannerlord than bullet arcs are in arma.


TL;DR: a very in depth way of saying bring back arrow drop just like what y’all’re sayin’ over there. This is my case for why bringing back arrow drop would be a buff to archers.

So you’re basically saying no to bringing back arrow drop because archers are already op? ?

 

[KSHMR]

Aah yeah no I agree that vertical aim corrections needs to be reduced our removed. The way it was in Warband is fine.

But to be honest I think that this won't be neccesary after the fixes. Cav wont be as OP and inf will be stronger. I dont think we should touch archery too much at all. Not make it stronger nor weaker.

 

[stevehoos]

Uh........ Archers are roasting other units in this game.

 

[rektasaurus]

Uh........ Archers are roasting other units in this game.

Yes, crossfires are deadly. Avoiding them is better for your health but difficult to do. And if the archer knows what they’re doing you don’t even know they’re around until you get hit.

Aah yeah no I agree that vertical aim corrections needs to be reduced our removed. The way it was in Warband is fine.

But to be honest I think that this won't be neccesary after the fixes. Cav wont be as OP and inf will be stronger. I dont think we should touch archery too much at all. Not make it stronger nor weaker.

I fear that 3rd person vertical aim compensation won’t ever be touched. A really big bummer. Sadly it’s not something that can be reduced, so to speak, it either is, or isn’t, and trust me that it actually makes shooting arrows or throwing missiles consistently much, much harder.

Edit: I take that back. It can be reduced by adjusting how the crosshairs are zeroed, in other words moving the distance where the arrow would land dead center the first time it passes up through the crosshairs further away from the player character than where it currently is, so that the upward leg of the trajectory is less pronounced at close ranges, and the arrow drops more at range.

This zero point should match all missiles actually I think that would for sure fix the janky feeling. Something like 20 feet away would be nice, I don’t know the distances where each missile is zeroed to currently. ?

Granted, this would make close range jav headshots look derpy on screen.

 

[Yukmouth++]

massive -1 Archers are WAY too strong and infantry classes are way too underwhelming. The only thing that needs a buff is the infantry role. Archers and Cav need a well deserved nerf. Archer damage way too insanely high, especially crossbows. Archers run too fast, some of them too much armor, and some of them wields weapons they should not have any proficiency in (2h weapons). Archers are basicly infantry classes with bows and xbows at the moment.

 

[rektasaurus]

massive -1 Archers are WAY too strong and infantry classes are way too underwhelming. The only thing that needs a buff is the infantry role. Archers and Cav need a well deserved nerf. Archer damage way too insanely high, especially crossbows. Archers run too fast, some of them too much armor, and some of them wields weapons they should not have any proficiency in (2h weapons). Archers are basicly infantry classes with bows and xbows at the moment.

Crossbow bolts need adjustments I agree. Their arc is unrealistically flat. But bolts =/= arrows. And crossbowmen =/= archers.

To go completely off topic. If anything, fixing the class balance issue needs infantry getting a big buff. Archers and cav getting big nerfs will only make the game less fun to play. All things are relative. Faster moving, harder hitting, and better damage tanking infantry, will feel much better than slowing archers down, nerfing their melee damage, and making their arrows do even less damage. That’s elementary game design. Once again, class balance falls far outside outside the scope of this thread.

Like I just explained to kshmr, the post isn’t a class balance post. Guys, I know reading walls of text is heard, but I read your walls of text, the least you can do is read mine before subjecting me to yours...

 

[Apocal]

Like I just explained to kshmr, the post isn’t a class balance post. Guys, I know reading walls of text is heard, but I read your walls of text, the least you can do is read mine before subjecting me to yours...

You should not have titled the thread "Please Buff Archers" if you're actually going to talk about the issues with vertical aim correction. Most people only actually read the thread title and first line of the opening post. Hell, the only reason I'm even in this thread is because someone else linked it to me on a Discord, saying (paraphrased) "this guy thinks MP needs archers to be even more OP."

That being said, it seems like TW is interested in addressing at least part of the issue you raised, with the awkward positioning of the character's arms.

 

[rektasaurus]

You should not have titled the thread "Please Buff Archers" if you're actually going to talk about the issues with vertical aim correction. Most people only actually read the thread title and first line of the opening post. Hell, the only reason I'm even in this thread is because someone else linked it to me on a Discord, saying (paraphrased) "this guy thinks MP needs archers to be even more OP."

Yeah. You’re right. The click-bait for sure didn’t help. Thanks for the heads up. Doesn’t surprise me though, it’s way more fun to talk **** in a circlejerk. Reading is hard.

 

[Apocal]

Yeah. The click-bait for sure didn’t help. Thanks for the heads up. Doesn’t surprise me though, it’s way more fun to talk **** in a circlejerk. Reading is hard.

I edited my post a few seconds ago with something; I couldn't find the link at first, but a TW dev is looking into weapon FoV settings to get the player's arm out of the way in first person mode.

 

[rektasaurus]

I edited my post a few seconds ago with something; I couldn't find the link at first, but a TW dev is looking into weapon FoV settings to get the player's arm out of the way in first person mode.

Excellent thread thanks for linking. I would love to see those changes to first person.

Thankfully the issue with shooting at extreme angles in third person is limited to very few circumstances. Elevation issues are still jank and it could be better. I wish there was better analysis of what makes something op than most of what I hear or read and more an emphasis on buffing the right things instead of qqing for a nerfhammer.

Warband is for sure not the pinnacle of balanced comp play and most of the arguments I hear or read are tiresome or plain wrong.

I have hope though because this community was against including a voting system for comments to encourage ideas being able to stand on their own merit vs what is the most popular meta flavor of the week or who has the most clout to bring to bear. I think whether I’m here or not things will eventually work out.