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I mean mikstura today proved at how valuable archers are in 6v6 on factions like sarranid and vaegirs. Matafiks and Blade got like 30 kills between them, double headshot kills left, right and centre. I'd even say to nerf archers in 6v6 as they're unable to get pushed because you wouldn't want to risk any players since very man counts.

Somehow changing the prices of javs on nord cav would be nice but I guess you can't do that without a module as you'd not be able to display the new price.
 
Fietta said:
I mean mikstura today proved at how valuable archers are in 6v6 on factions like sarranid and vaegirs. Matafiks and Blade got like 30 kills between them, double headshot kills left, right and centre. I'd even say to nerf archers in 6v6 as they're unable to get pushed because you wouldn't want to risk any players since very man counts.

Somehow changing the prices of javs on nord cav would be nice but I guess you can't do that without a module as you'd not be able to display the new price.

I watched the stream, from my point of view being an archer. Wolfpack just allowed them to shoot without, even most of the time attempting to stop them. If you want archers to be less effective you need to PUSH them otherwise they will free shoot and poof people will get killed. Also, Mata and Blade are really good archers not many can perform like them. Most teams in 6 v 6 try to avoid using archers never mind use 2 even on vaegirs.
 
Apollo~ said:
Fietta said:
I mean mikstura today proved at how valuable archers are in 6v6 on factions like sarranid and vaegirs. Matafiks and Blade got like 30 kills between them, double headshot kills left, right and centre. I'd even say to nerf archers in 6v6 as they're unable to get pushed because you wouldn't want to risk any players since very man counts.

Somehow changing the prices of javs on nord cav would be nice but I guess you can't do that without a module as you'd not be able to display the new price.

I watched the stream, from my point of view being an archer. Wolfpack just allowed them to shoot without, even most of the time attempting to stop them. If you want archers to be less effective you need to PUSH them otherwise they will free shoot and poof people will get killed. Also, Mata and Blade are really good archers not many can perform like them. Most teams in 6 v 6 try to avoid using archers never mind use 2 even on vaegirs.

Easier said than done. You start pushing them and turn around for a millisecond cos of a cav warning and plöp 2 headshots is all i remember from that match :p
 
Sebe said:
Apollo~ said:
Fietta said:
I mean mikstura today proved at how valuable archers are in 6v6 on factions like sarranid and vaegirs. Matafiks and Blade got like 30 kills between them, double headshot kills left, right and centre. I'd even say to nerf archers in 6v6 as they're unable to get pushed because you wouldn't want to risk any players since very man counts.

Somehow changing the prices of javs on nord cav would be nice but I guess you can't do that without a module as you'd not be able to display the new price.

I watched the stream, from my point of view being an archer. Wolfpack just allowed them to shoot without, even most of the time attempting to stop them. If you want archers to be less effective you need to PUSH them otherwise they will free shoot and poof people will get killed. Also, Mata and Blade are really good archers not many can perform like them. Most teams in 6 v 6 try to avoid using archers never mind use 2 even on vaegirs.

Easier said than done. You start pushing them and turn around for a millisecond cos of a cav warning and plöp 2 headshots is all i remember from that match :p

What does it have to do with foot shots then ?
 
it depends but i'd say its stronger in 8v8 cuz more chaos, more target to shoot that is why they should not touch footshots in 6v6
 
For Sarranid it might be good to increase the shield skill. Anyone getting footshot as Nords, Rhodok or Swadia should learn to look a bit more downwards (straightforward, "0 degrees", doesn't cover the feet). You can literally cover both head and feet as Nords, Rhodok and Swadia. Vaegir I'm unsure, but I recall it being possible to cover everything but the edge of the back foot when standing still.

Also, an important note: Whilst moving forward, your feet move outside of the shield cover. Standing still, you can't be footshot as Nords (assuming you hold the correct angle), but walking forward you will, no matter if the shieldskill is 5 or 1000, risk being footshot anyway. Although it requires both timing and hitting the correct foot, any sidestepping or slowing down prevents it.
 
Oliveran said:
For Sarranid it might be good to increase the shield skill. Anyone getting footshot as Nords, Rhodok or Swadia should learn to look a bit more downwards (straightforward, "0 degrees", doesn't cover the feet). You can literally cover both head and feet as Nords, Rhodok and Swadia. Vaegir I'm unsure, but I recall it being possible to cover everything but the edge of the back foot when standing still.

Also, an important note: Whilst moving forward, your feet move outside of the shield cover. Standing still, you can't be footshot as Nords (assuming you hold the correct angle), but walking forward you will, no matter if the shieldskill is 5 or 1000, risk being footshot anyway. Although it requires both timing and hitting the correct foot, any sidestepping or slowing down prevents it.
Or just learn to walk zigzag when you see archer aiming at your feet. All archers have some foot fetishes
 
I took a look at the stats again. So far I know 'strength' and 'agility' attributes count too.
However, I'd say in a way most problems like javs for Nord infs or Swadian awlpikes dropped for cav don't even belong to the original balancing. The original balancing was rather focused on balanced battle servers and drops in matches weren't considered.
There was a patch in 2013. Archer athletics got reduced to make them weaker in melee. Luckily the impact on their melee was rather small. But it slowed down the archer 'sidestep', reduced the archer gameplay and slowed down the whole team too. Sarranids used to have one more athletics for their more flexible fighting style and got nerfed more than others.
Swadia was considered to be the 'weakest faction'. So the prices of Swadian armour got reduced to make them stronger. Rhodoks were even weaker and didn't get anything. This certainly didn't improve the balance of the factions. It also would be interesting to know if the low armour prices had some additional impact on the availability of awlpikes too.

Bow factions rather use light armour and this also applies to their shields and shield skill. Their shields are still good enough to protect some feet/head but certainly aren't the best to charge a flag position. They have different advantages, should rather avoid risky charges and use a more flexible tactic. The match format might not always allow it but that's not the fault of any stats.
When Vaegirs get the shield skill of a crossbow faction their shield becomes bigger, but also stronger and faster too. In case of Rhodok and Swadia their higher shield skill gets compensated by slow Rhodok equipment and lower Swadian 1h proficiencies. But the Vaegir scimitar doesn't get compensated by anything and the combination would just make them even faster. The Vaegir Power Draw skill also cannot get lowered since it would unbalance all their bows. And Vaegir dragoons gets improved too. Well, Vaegirs already belong to the strongest factions and don't need to get improved that much.
Naturally, Nords are very effective in such positioned flag fights and charges and appear overly strong. When their infantry strength gets reduced it might feel more equal regarding flag fights. But actually their strong inf just compensates the weakness of their cav and archers. When their power throw gets decreased they can't throw javs that effectively anymore. But this would decrease their axe throwing skill too. The problem doesn't get fixed.
Another significant change is to make archers and crossbowmen stronger by giving them more power strike. Well, I agree to give them more athletics, but making them stronger actually means to reverse the patch by changing other stats to the opposite direction. It would be good to get back the original sidestep but archers don't need to be stronger.
The factions have very different individual advantages and disadvantages. Current matches favour offensive and aggressive tactics. Not all factions have the same aggressive skills and equipment. It's not possible to make all of them equally effective for those typical match situations. The one faction relies on light armour, arrows and crossfires while the other faction depends on heavy armour, crossbows or axes and inf charges. These fundamental differences belong to the balancing and don't need a fix.
Also regarding testing it in matches. I'd be very careful about that. Matches don't always cover all aspects of Warband. Little differences like a few more seconds, different flag spawn time, maybe a certain map or different team sizes and a certain faction advantage or disadvantage might have a totally different effect. And the factions are affected in different ways. The same strong infs might suddenly get couched by cav or run into crossfires, or in case it becomes more/less difficult to set up crossfires it ofc has more impact on bow factions than on a faction which rather depends on quick charges anyway. 

I think too many of the new stat changes rather lead away from the original balancing. I agree Nord javs, awlpikes and archer athletics are a problem. And personally I think actually it would make sense to follow the original balancing and to get it fixed. In case of athletics it's even possible but to fix javs and awlpikes too a mod is needed. Without mod there's no way to fix it properly. I think a player mod wouldn't be a problem. But maybe it's better just to keep the stats as they are, not to risk further inbalances and to keep the stats close to Native and to other servers.
 
OliESC said:
Calculations
We have to consider the actual damage though, to get some perspective.
Code:
raw_damage = (bow_damage + arrow_damage) * (archery_wpf * 0.01 * 0.15 + 0.85) * (min(power_draw, difficulty + 4) * 0.14 + 1) + strength / 5.0

So you get, from a (strongbow + barbed arrows) vs (nomad bow + barbed arrows) - in other words, Vaegir archer vs Sarranid archer
52.25 = (23 + 2) * (150 * 0.01 * 0.15 + 0.85) * (6 * 0.14 + 1) + 14 / 5
43.20 = (20 + 2) * (150 * 0.01 * 0.15 + 0.85) * (5 * 0.14 + 1) + 15 / 5
This doesn't take into regard speed, soaking and other modifiers. So there's a difference of roughly 11 damage.
Code:
potential damage - armor value * soak factor
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce    = 0.65

So since the potential damage only changes with distance (more distance = slower projectile), we can do an experiment:
Damage - Leather Armor * 0.65

So you get:
37.30 = 52.25 - (23 * 0.65)
vs
28.25 = 43.20 - (23 * 0.65)
Which still makes the difference stay at roughly 9 damage, regardless of distance. There's a 75% damage increase on headshots, so with regards to headshots, assuming 32 head armor:
Code:
31.45 = 52.25 - (32 * 0.65)
then:
55 = 31.45 * 1.75

vs
22.40 = 43.20 - (32 * 0.65)
then:
39.20 = 22.40 * 1.75
So there's a 16 damage difference on headshots (assuming the shooter & target doesn't move), on a target with 32 head armor - spiked cap of vaegir - from a nomad bow to a strong bow. Some classes have as low as 55 health, so there's the difference between potentially getting a kill in 3 shots, or 1 shot.
In short:
Not considering the time it takes to shoot (because then we might as well say crossbows are useless), the damage difference is still so big that Vaegir archers will still reign supreme on open maps, given enough time to shoot, regardless of if the nomad bow didn't get nerfed or not.

As only Vaegir gets a power draw nerf, no other factions gets nerfed. And because the strong bow offers so much more damage, you still wouldn't pick the nomad bow as Vaegir, and other factions still won't dish out enough damage to compare to the Vaegir archer using strong bow.
 
Oliveran said:
Calculations

You compared two different factions (Sarranid Nomad Bow vs Vaegir Strong Bow). Ofc there's still a difference and my calculations showed the same difference too. I just didnt add arrows, proficiencies, strength.. I skipped all the values which are the same for all bows anyway.
I compared the one Vaegir Bow to the other Vaegir Bows and I also compared original Power Draw 7 to new Power Draw 6.
But I can also add arrows, proficiencies and strength and just do the unnecessarily complicated total calculation:

archerstatchangeeffect.png

["(Nomad)" means compared to Nomad Bow]


The numbers are different but the results didn't change. My calculations were correct.
  • Nomad bow didn't get nerfed. If Power Draw 7 or 6 doesn't make any difference. All the other bows moved closer to the Nomad Bow
  • Khergit Bow isn't much stronger than Nomad Bow anymore and there's no reason to use it (48,29 for Khergit compared to 46,32 for Nomad).
  • Strong Bow isn't thaaat much stronger than Nomad Bow either, including all arrows and stuff Nomad Bow does 46,32 damage and Strong Bow does 52.25 Everybody can decide for themselves, but I'd say that's not worth the price and not worth the lower speed.
  • War Bow just does 56,21, but ofc it's much slower and now additionally gets an accuracy penalty.
 
OliESC said:
Strong Bow isn't thaaat much stronger than Nomad Bow either, including all arrows and stuff Nomad Bow does 46,32 damage and Strong Bow does 52.25 Everybody can decide for themselves, but I'd say that's not worth the price and not worth the lower speed.

Strong bow is currently the only viable bow for Vaegirs. It often takes 3 body shots to kill enemy inf with the other 2 bows.
 
Hero_of_Ferelden said:
OliESC said:
Strong Bow isn't thaaat much stronger than Nomad Bow either, including all arrows and stuff Nomad Bow does 46,32 damage and Strong Bow does 52.25 Everybody can decide for themselves, but I'd say that's not worth the price and not worth the lower speed.

Strong bow is currently the only viable bow for Vaegirs. It often takes 3 body shots to kill enemy inf with the other 2 bows.
Nomad Bow always was a good Bow too. It totally depends on your personal play style. And it's still good cause it didn't get nerfed. And btw often you rather need 4 shots to kill an enemy.
Now the Strong Bow is still stronger, exactly 12.8% stronger than Nomad Bow, but also 6 points slower and you also can't get a proper helmet anymore. As I wrote everybody can decide for themselves and you did.
 
Its not about stats tho. It's a huge advantage to be able to 1shot an enemy with a headshot. Overall dps doesn't matter that much. Strong bow has always been good imo, the damage it does against horses is insane. I've had my hunter die with 2 shots against strong bows. With the nerfs normad bow is useless, dunno about khergit - surely worse than before but probably playable.
 
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