Formation Madness

[Zarthas]

The speed nerf to Square and Shieldwall is pretty out of hand.

I realize this was part of a strategy to make archers more viable, but it has negatively impacted Light and Heavy Infantry vs. every other unit type. Heavy infantry didn't really need to be nerfed further.

Square was an integral part of defending against cavalry, particularly solo rambo cavalry, and engaging shock units in melee.
Square formation is now almost useless against cavalry, as the troops move too slowly to react.

As of today, there are only two usable formations: Loose and Line. This is less interesting and removes maybe the most enjoyable aspect of playing Infantry in Captain mode.

Loose formation is now superior for closing with archers as Heavy Infantry since the shieldwall nerf.
The increased time it takes to reach the archers allows them to hit around the shields, and you will not make it to the archers.

Shieldwall and Square have become fully static formations, which is just significantly less interesting than the game was before.

Pre-nerf, you would see skilled players doing all kinds of interesting maneuvers to lure foolish enemies into getting flanked, like going into Square from Shieldwall to allow themselves to be surrounded so an ally could counter charge.

This kind of play is not seen as much any more. The formation system speed nerf is unnecessarily punitive to infantry players, and its almost nonsensical nature makes it very tough to learn for new players.

Please restore formation speeds to their pre-December values.

 

[Super Jew]

+1

 

[Spottswoode]

I think it's good. The change of dynamic to the way archers are shut down is good. It requires team work instead of just continuing the charge through at break neck speed and giving them no chance to land a few arrows before they try to retreat.

Shield wall is extremely powerful to fight in... in certain circumstances and pretty much should be reserved for those circumstances. Square too is very powerful.. in the right moment. Line formation does a great job of moving fast and blocking arrows all the while not breaking the game for archers.

I agree that it is harder to do the moves your talking about re baiting into square etc... But so it should be a risk to try to pull off that maneuver which can be so devastating.

I am regularly changing formation with my shields and I really enjoy that part of the gameplay. I like that those circumstantial formations have penalties.. Making them even more circumstantial... I think it adds flavor to the strategies and forces a shield unit to really consider timing their charges with the whole army..

With all that said... It does feel weird and unusual and I would agree from as realism stand point nonsensical, I do agree that it is a big challenge for a new player who is not expecting this... Newbies always seem to default to shield wall the moment they spawn.. Then end up late to the party

Please don't hate on me too much for disagreeing lol... also please don't take my post as anything but my opinion. Not trying to tell anyone anything about how to play, as is so often mistaken. Just my preference

 

[Shatti]

units should be slow to sustain the formation
how much slow ?
i don't know, but yes they should be very slow

 

[ParzivaI]

+1
It's so painful to watch the A.I doind shield formation.. just walking to reach the destination, while being shot by archers non stop, they should revert this ASAP

 

[ParzivaI]

Pre-nerf, you would see skilled players doing all kinds of interesting maneuvers to lure foolish enemies into getting flanked, like going into Square from Shieldwall to allow themselves to be surrounded so an ally could counter charge.

Oh i miss pre-nerf formation so much, it was so fun to use square formations to block pathways and watch the enemy cav get destroyed, so many things to do, now i haven't use square formations since the updade and i would' rather lose half my troops charging archers than doing a slow motion shieldwall.

 

[Super Jew]

I think it's good. The change of dynamic to the way archers are shut down is good. It requires team work instead of just continuing the charge through at break neck speed and giving them no chance to land a few arrows before they try to retreat.

So if you don't have a cavalry unit on your team and you are against a archer build will it even be possible to win that round now that shield wall is so slow?

 

[karphead]

i agree with the op - give me square formation back you barstards

 

[Spottswoode]

So if you don't have a cavalry unit on your team and you are against a archer build will it even be possible to win that round now that shield wall is so slow?

The answer to that question will always depend on your team. What's your army make up.. where are the enemy. Most elevated areas on captain maps have multiple entrance ramps to approach from. Each has a decent amount of cover from the side if the enemy are not actively guarding it.

Is it harder to do it without cav... Yes.. it should be, the team your describing has made it hard by not going for a balanced army. That's the game, you have good counter armies and bad counter armies. We also have 3 rounds, so don't make the mistake again of leaving cav behind again.

If you have plenty of shields you should be fine.. time your run, line formation blocks enough, if your out of sync with your army, one of them can slow down in shield wall while you get your timing back, then pursue in line formation again. The distances to charge across are not that big on any map. It's not like you can't do it.

To many shock units... Well go for flags and camp and hope.. or blitz from the beginning and try to catch them before setting up and hope. But no you won't win every exchange if you are not careful in your unit selection.

 

[Zarthas]

I think it's good. The change of dynamic to the way archers are shut down is good. It requires team work instead of just continuing the charge through at break neck speed and giving them no chance to land a few arrows before they try to retreat.

Shield wall is extremely powerful to fight in... in certain circumstances and pretty much should be reserved for those circumstances. Square too is very powerful.. in the right moment. Line formation does a great job of moving fast and blocking arrows all the while not breaking the game for archers.

I agree that it is harder to do the moves your talking about re baiting into square etc... But so it should be a risk to try to pull off that maneuver which can be so devastating.

I am regularly changing formation with my shields and I really enjoy that part of the gameplay. I like that those circumstantial formations have penalties.. Making them even more circumstantial... I think it adds flavor to the strategies and forces a shield unit to really consider timing their charges with the whole army..

With all that said... It does feel weird and unusual and I would agree from as realism stand point nonsensical, I do agree that it is a big challenge for a new player who is not expecting this... Newbies always seem to default to shield wall the moment they spawn.. Then end up late to the party

Please don't hate on me too much for disagreeing lol... also please don't take my post as anything but my opinion. Not trying to tell anyone anything about how to play, as is so often mistaken. Just my preference

I get what you're trying to say.

Square and Shieldwall should absolutely be slower than Line or Loose, and they absolutely were pre-December. It was something like 80% of move rate vs. Line, with Loose being the fastest. This was good. Using the wrong formation could get you killed if you needed to escape a faster unit or get into flanking position quickly.

Yes, the Square and Shieldwall we have now are strictly static formations. This is less compelling than the way the game worked before, removes options from Infantry players, and in general makes the game less interesting.

It is absolutely good design, historical, and interesting, to have Shieldwall and Square be viable formations for engaging enemies and not strictly for securing pre-approved chokepoints on maps.

What we have now has further exacerbated the problems with the game being largely determined by team composition rather than a game of unit-centric tactical combat. Removing flexibility and ultimately lowering the skill ceiling of infantry Captain players has harmed the game and has not given us anything for it.

If the only solution to your archer and cavalry design is to make infantry features unusable, it means your archer and cavalry design was bad. This hacky solution has made Infantry less playable vs everything, including other infantry.

Why did we bother to develop features like formations and pike bracing if we are going to make sure they can't be used?

 

[Super Jew]

The answer to that question will always depend on your team. What's your army make up.. where are the enemy. Most elevated areas on captain maps have multiple entrance ramps to approach from. Each has a decent amount of cover from the side if the enemy are not actively guarding it.

Is it harder to do it without cav... Yes.. it should be, the team your describing has made it hard by not going for a balanced army. That's the game, you have good counter armies and bad counter armies. We also have 3 rounds, so don't make the mistake again of leaving cav behind again.

If you have plenty of shields you should be fine.. time your run, line formation blocks enough, if your out of sync with your army, one of them can slow down in shield wall while you get your timing back, then pursue in line formation again. The distances to charge across are not that big on any map. It's not like you can't do it.

To many shock units... Well go for flags and camp and hope.. or blitz from the beginning and try to catch them before setting up and hope. But no you won't win every exchange if you are not careful in your unit selection.

Lets pretend the enemy had 4 archers and 2 cavalry on Jawwali. Your team has one shield and 5 shock. Of course, the enemy team goes C to start as archers always do on Jawwali. What is your plan?

When the shield wall was faster you could potentially beat the enemy if their archers weren't spread out. If the enemy team thinks and doesn't freeze up they will spread out and it will be a free day of shooting from 3 sides.

 

[Spottswoode]

Lets pretend the enemy had 4 archers and 2 cavalry on Jawwali. Your team has one shield and 5 shock. Of course, the enemy team goes C to start as archers always do on Jawwali. What is your plan?

When the shield wall was faster you could potentially beat the enemy if their archers weren't spread out. If the enemy team thinks and doesn't freeze up they will spread out and it will be a free day of shooting from 3 sides.

Like I said before, you're in trouble with that many shock units... bad choice for that round, take a and b and hope for the flags to go your way, choose wisely next round.

If you're forced to go for c. I guess I would send your shields up, try to draw as much attention as possible while your shock use all other ramps so at least your attack is coming from 4 angles. Use houses and use rocks to cut off line of sight as best as you can. But ultimately your team made bad unit choices for this round. Give it your best shot, change your units for next round. You can't cry it's not fair that you can't beat archers when you have a total of 17 shields between 100 men.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed being able to steam roll archers just as much as the next infantry unit, but I also want this game mode to have more challenge than less. It was not challenging to beat archers with a fast moving shield wall, that is why I enjoy it slower, I just prefer the challenge it brings. I also prefer the game when it nudges you into bringing a more balanced army rather than inf, inf and more inf ftw.

No matter the enemy makeup a team with primarily archers is going to have to work fairly hard to win or at least play with a deeper strategy than mostly infantry armies. If they win, they have done well and should be proud. Also they took a massive risk by running full Archer and cav setup if the team they are facing is fairly organised and could well be bringing cav for all they know. That risk had paid off when they see all the shieldless troops spawn

 

[MadHatter10_6]

re: original post. Archers can be made more viable by improving draw rate and slightly increasing player's hold rate.

Sheild wall I agree completely. I like that its slower but its painfully slow to the point of almost being pointless. I think one or the other should be slow and the other should be in between. Make square the super slow, move at a crawl formation to approach archers (i.e. on the bridge); but have sheild wall be a ~med speed formation to form up ranks (i.e. on open ground).

 

[WarMir]

Does anyone know if any of the Devs had courage to explain this idiocy?

 

[Spottswoode]

Btw, I'm all for speed tweaks, I do think it could be faster without game breaking, it is painfully slow from a rl perspective, I agree with that. But I also believe that the gameplay with shields pushing on archers was way too fast previously. There was no time to setup properly, 1 shield could push against many archers and be on top of them before they had even arrived in their split positions where they have a chance of being effective (re super Jews post). It was just too much for the game to have an archer strategy that didn't completely rely on the infantry going the wrong way at the beginning or alternately keeping your archers completely hidden until the infantry fight starts... Because you knew the second they were seen, you would have 1 unit of impenetrable shields rushing you and your are completely out of the fight from that moment

 

[Super Jew]

Btw, I'm all for speed tweaks, I do think it could be faster without game breaking, it is painfully slow from a rl perspective, I agree with that. But I also believe that the gameplay with shields pushing on archers was way too fast previously. There was no time to setup properly, 1 shield could push against many archers and be on top of them before they had even arrived in their split positions where they have a chance of being effective (re super Jews post). It was just too much for the game to have an archer strategy that didn't completely rely on the infantry going the wrong way at the beginning or alternately keeping your archers completely hidden until the infantry fight starts... Because you knew the second they were seen, you would have 1 unit of impenetrable shields rushing you and your are completely out of the fight from that moment

With a good cavalry player it is no problem. The cavalry slams in the shields makes them turn around and in a matter of seconds the archers can kill enough of the infantry to where they can win in a melee fight. Half of the heavy archers could beat heavy infantry with some above average pvp skills by the archer. Usually in a competitive setting there would be one or two shield infantry at most and the rest would be shock with no shield. The archers getting pushed would run while the others would be shooting. As long as you set up a crossfire the shield infantry would not be able to do much.

 

[Zarthas]

Does anyone know if any of the Devs had courage to explain this idiocy?

Sort of? I'm pretty sure AVRC quickly commented in the days after the patch recognizing it was too much and would be rolled back, but I haven't heard anything since.

 

[WarMir]

Sort of? I'm pretty sure AVRC quickly commented in the days after the patch recognizing it was too much and would be rolled back, but I haven't heard anything since.

Thank You for sharing this information.