[HUGE PROBLEM] High-tier item balance (first post updated with suggestions!)

[okiN]

Again, that's a different issue. Even if you make purchases and gold persistent like that, the problem remains that the more expensive items are clearly inferior in terms of armor and horses, and the weapon cost/effectiveness balance is also very skewed in lots of ways.

Edit: just to clarify...

This thread is not about the faults of the money system.

This thread is not about the fact that specific weapons (great long bardiche, great long axe, et al) are grossly overpowered.

All of that is completely beside the point.

This thread is about the fact that the more expensive armors and horses are almost completely useless and therefore disgustingly overpriced, and the fact that there is practically no incentive at all to spend money on anything other than mid-range armor and the best available weapons.

The only situation I can think of where it could ever give you an overall advantage is in a group, where you can avoid getting singled out by virtue of being protected by teammates. Now, knowing what pub players are like, I really don't like to rely on my teammates like that. So, excluding that scenario, while the heavy armor will maybe let you absorb a couple extra hits, it will also make you take more hits. So the end result is that you might have a slightly better chance of surviving one or two one on ones (at least against 1h users), but even after those extra hits you'll be almost dead, whereas if you'd had no armor, or light armor, you'd have had a much better chance of not being hit at all. I'd say that the net result is, at best, plus minus zero. So yeah, you're literally paying 10k gold for nothing.

Also, can we please get a clarification from the "Hell no!" guy? That's assuming he's not a troll.

 

[Attacksmurfen]

I think there are several issues:
- Weapons - long axes/bardiches being too fast and too powerful, and too cheap.
  The spiked club is way too cheap/too fast.
  The long knobbed mace is too fast.
 

- high tier armour is too expensive and won't give enough protection i.e. you can still be 1-hit killed and you need to pay for 3 parts to be fully protected (this alone should be a reason to lower the costs considerably - for 1000 credits you should be able to buy armour, a helmet and leg protection and still have something left to buy at least a better shield).
- warhorse and charger are just too sad, slow and will still go down easily. And too expensive...
The glaive I think is a fine long weapon, 157 reach and 38 swing damage, the long bardiches and axes should be somewhat similar but all need to be slower.

Also, all weapons should be a little weaker across the board, sure, 1-handed weapons and spears would be a pain to use against armour, but yeah, there you got it, armour would actually be useful. So you would need a more powerful weapon for fighting armour but it would on the other hand be slow and deny the use of a shield / you could use a mace but you then get short reach/slow weapon. If you save some money you could afford it all but armour would still make you slower so you would need to be careful so to not get stuck against a mob and being slow is a drwback in duels. It would all be about considerations, what suits your playstyle and what you expect to be facing.
Right now you don't have many options, if you want good armour you need to save your money but you know it's just not worth it.

 

[L-J-F]

I think there are several issues:
- Weapons - long axes/bardiches being too fast and too powerful, and too cheap.
  The spiked club is way too cheap/too fast.
  The long knobbed mace is too fast.
 

- high tier armour is too expensive and won't give enough protection i.e. you can still be 1-hit killed and you need to pay for 3 parts to be fully protected (this alone should be a reason to lower the costs considerably - for 1000 credits you should be able to buy armour, a helmet and leg protection and still have something left to buy at least a better shield).
- warhorse and charger are just too sad, slow and will still go down easily. And too expensive...
The glaive I think is a fine long weapon, 157 reach and 38 swing damage, the long bardiches and axes should be somewhat similar but all need to be slower.

Also, all weapons should be a little weaker across the board, sure, 1-handed weapons and spears would be a pain to use against armour, but yeah, there you got it, armour would actually be useful. So you would need a more powerful weapon for fighting armour but it would on the other hand be slow and deny the use of a shield / you could use a mace but you then get short reach/slow weapon. If you save some money you could afford it all but armour would still make you slower so you would need to be careful so to not get stuck against a mob and being slow is a drwback in duels. It would all be about considerations, what suits your playstyle and what you expect to be facing.
Right now you don't have many options, if you want good armour you need to save your money but you know it's just not worth it.

Personally I think the price is fine (or should be increased even) but the higher level armor is in dire need of increased performance.

 

[Moss]

Personally I think the major issue here is that two handed weapons are currently ridiculously over powered.

The things is this:

The weapon sweet spot idea by crazed rabbit could be implemented.  That way axes could stay high damage but distance control would be more important for them.  So random spammy axe hits would mostly do no damage to armor.  But If you hit at the right distance it would do a lot of damage like now.  Axes shouldn't be used just like swords.  I guess you are right about the two-handed swords not needing to be weakened.  Armor will let you take 3 and maybe 4 hits of the two-handed sword.  Which is pretty balanced.

Is in game and has always been in game. But for the last couple of versions it's been broken. The disadvantage of a long weapon is that it's useless up close. Remember in singleplayer how you'd take a swing with that great sword whilst being face hugged by the AI and it'd thwap the pommel against their head and do nothing?

It's really impossible to tell how balanced long reach weapons actually are until we've played with the reach damage fixed. They should be effective against armor, that much makes sense, but they shouldn't be as common as they are because they should also be at a significant disadvantage against shorter reach weapons if they can't keep their distance. Two handed weapons should work as can openers, dangerous high damage weapons. But without the counter of getting in close and negating the effectiveness of their attacks, they simply don't work.

 

[okiN]

Moss: that's a good point, and I'm not suggesting you just make two-handers bounce off armored targets. It's just... even if you fix the facehugging bugs, heavy armor will still remain just as utterly broken as it is now, for the reasons I've given above. It's a crying shame no matter how you look at it. I'd love nothing more than to play a fully armored great lance/sword charger knight, or greatswording landsknecht, but as it is, the game punishes you horribly for even thinking that.

 

[L-J-F]

Probably not all that relevant since it's plate armor, but I saw a video of a guy trying to stab through a breastplate with a two hander, he was gripping it by the blade and the grip, and the breastplate was angled at 45 degrees (probably the optimum for penetration), he stabbed it fair on with all his strength and only managed to penetrate an inch. Keeping in mind that in combat this situation would be almost impossible to achieve:

* Your strike would push the man back, giving much less chance of penetration than hitting the armor when it's wedged against the ground.
* You probably wouldn't get a perfect, front on strike - he has a sword too and is moving around.

I think many underestimate the strength of armor.

Of course, chain mail is a different matter, but you get the idea ...

 

[Brudelas]

This is a great suggestion and one thing I'd like to stress more is the damage done on different armor types from different attacks.(Stabs, swings of different direction)
This is already implemented to a degree (I believe) but it should be more severe.
So say you have been saving your money and you buy some nice mail and as soon as you spawn some lunatic chases after you with his long axe. When he hits you you he depletes only around 1/6 of your health because he is just swinging it. This swing does only blunt damage thanks to your mail and you survive with some dignity. If this was implemented stabs would be the most effective attack against mail (if you need proof: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(armour) ) as well as bodkin arrows and bolts (bodkins are also mentioned on the site.). Addressing helmets, an unhelmeted player would be extremely vulnerable to overhead attacks which would force many players to bother to get a helmet if they do not wish to be axed on the head. Helmets would become more popularily used, which they currently tend to not be. Now if anyone is concerned about a player buying heavy mail and a plate helmet they would have several weaknesses such as: bodkins, sword stabs and now that I think about it, blunt weapons (clubs, maces, and hammers) were very effective against rigid helmets. Seeing as the sideways swing is currently the most popular attack this would make high tier armor much more effective and at the same time it would make 2 handers much less effective (they need to be fixed against softer armors too though).

Note: I apologize if this is rather confusing I'll clarify anything if asked.
Note2: It's also rather jumbled.

 

[Skandinav]

I don't think it would be nice to sacrifice realism for some arbitrary game balance; a lot of weapons ( crossbows, longbows, awlpikes, warspears, long axes, 2h swords, lances and hammers etc ) in WB are devastating against mail and should maim, and sometimes kill, an armored player with one good hit, even against the best mail in WB. This is realistic and historically accurate.
Decreasing slowness of armor is another matter, though.

 

[Moss]

Moss: that's a good point, and I'm not suggesting you just make two-handers bounce off armored targets. It's just... even if you fix the facehugging bugs, heavy armor will still remain just as utterly broken as it is now, for the reasons I've given above. It's a crying shame no matter how you look at it. I'd love nothing more than to play a fully armored great lance/sword charger knight, or greatswording landsknecht, but as it is, the game punishes you horribly for even thinking that.

Oh, you're entirely right there. I never buy armour heavier than the lightest after the tunic, usually not even that. The same applies for nearly every other player I see. When you've got 20k available and you're not prepared to buy armour there's something seriously wrong.

The thing is that top tier armour works perfectly against one handed weapons. The penalty to speed for armour is much higher than it needs to be, but the fact that everyone is running around with the two handers at the moment, because of the reach bug, makes it very hard to tell just how much armour needs to change to balance it out.

Armour seems to suffer from the same balancing issues as other weapons though, they improve in a single value, but in exchange are penalised in two.

For example, The military pick does two more damage than the fighting pick. In exchange it's slower and costs much more. The best swords have the same reach, same weight, same length and two extra damage as the free swords at a 400 denar price tag. The high tier bows do slightly more damage, but shoot much, much slower and have cripplingly low accuracy. People are happy to choose the siege crossbow, it's advantages are superior to it's disadvantages, but I never see any experienced players use any of the large bows. Warhorses and Charges are better left unmentioned. Most of the items in the game need some attention balance wise.

When no ones using the most expensive items in the game not because they're too expensive, but because they're inferior there's a serious issue.

 

[L-J-F]

Moss: that's a good point, and I'm not suggesting you just make two-handers bounce off armored targets. It's just... even if you fix the facehugging bugs, heavy armor will still remain just as utterly broken as it is now, for the reasons I've given above. It's a crying shame no matter how you look at it. I'd love nothing more than to play a fully armored great lance/sword charger knight, or greatswording landsknecht, but as it is, the game punishes you horribly for even thinking that.

Oh, you're entirely right there. I never buy armour heavier than the lightest after the tunic, usually not even that. The same applies for nearly every other player I see. When you've got 20k available and you're not prepared to buy armour there's something seriously wrong.

The thing is that top tier armour works perfectly against one handed weapons. The penalty to speed for armour is much higher than it needs to be, but the fact that everyone is running around with the two handers at the moment, because of the reach bug, makes it very hard to tell just how much armour needs to change to balance it out.

Armour seems to suffer from the same balancing issues as other weapons though, they improve in a single value, but in exchange are penalised in two.

For example, The military pick does two more damage than the fighting pick. In exchange it's slower and costs much more. The best swords have the same reach, same weight, same length and two extra damage as the free swords at a 400 denar price tag. The high tier bows do slightly more damage, but shoot much, much slower and have cripplingly low accuracy. People are happy to choose the siege crossbow, it's advantages are superior to it's disadvantages, but I never see any experienced players use any of the large bows. Warhorses and Charges are better left unmentioned. Most of the items in the game need some attention balance wise.

When no ones using the most expensive items in the game not because they're too expensive, but because they're inferior there's a serious issue.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

 

[Gumpy]

I tend to buy the 3rd tier armors like the lamellar vest and haubergeon, because they offer about twice as much protection than the leathers for a reasonable price. They give you a better chance of surviving against a 1h or a bastard sword if you make a few mistakes, and they're not so expensive that you can't replace them a round or two later, unless you're doing really badly. They coast around at about 40 armor though, and anything above them offers maximum ten more points for another 2-3000 denars. It seems to be an area that has just been forgotten by the balancing dept and left in there to show off the textures.

The two handers really are a problem. It's not uncommon to be 1-hitted by a longaxe when wearing something as extravagant as a brigandine, for example. Horses have been slightly amped though and IMO are almost at the sweet spot; the Hunter is now a formidable mount instead of something better swapped for a courser or saddle horse, but they still don't really last the distance against a troupe of, say, throwing-axe wielding nords

 

[okiN]

The glaive I think is a fine long weapon, 157 reach and 38 swing damage, the long bardiches and axes should be somewhat similar but all need to be slower.

Maybe not quite so extreme -- 38c isn't that much more damaging than a hand axe. Some of the weapons are definitely too damaging, but I think it's more important that those huge-ass, crazy long weapons with damage in the fifties and forties be made a lot slower than they are now, and a lot more expensive as well.

I don't think it would be nice to sacrifice realism for some arbitrary game balance; a lot of weapons ( crossbows, longbows, awlpikes, warspears, long axes, 2h swords, lances and hammers etc ) in WB are devastating against mail and should maim, and sometimes kill, an armored player with one good hit, even against the best mail in WB. This is realistic and historically accurate.
Decreasing slowness of armor is another matter, though.

Absolutely. Like I said, I don't want to make all weapons useless against armor -- there should be ways of countering armored players. It just shouldn't be this goddamn easy. I think the key moves are:

Increase top-tier armor protection values a little (the current difference just isn't reasonable given the cost)
Slow the progression of armor weight a lot, or make it easier to carry (not saying knights should out-sprint nudists, but they should be nowhere near as slow as they are now)
Balance weapons better (make the best weapons more expensive, make the balance of length, damage and speed reasonable - 2h weapons need extra attention)
Make warhorses and chargers faster and more maneuverable (no-brainer. Both of them should be only a couple of points behind the hunter in speed and maneuverability)

Armour seems to suffer from the same balancing issues as other weapons though, they improve in a single value, but in exchange are penalised in two.

For example, The military pick does two more damage than the fighting pick. In exchange it's slower and costs much more. The best swords have the same reach, same weight, same length and two extra damage as the free swords at a 400 denar price tag. The high tier bows do slightly more damage, but shoot much, much slower and have cripplingly low accuracy. People are happy to choose the siege crossbow, it's advantages are superior to it's disadvantages, but I never see any experienced players use any of the large bows. Warhorses and Charges are better left unmentioned. Most of the items in the game need some attention balance wise.

The thing is that the effect of the penalties with armor and horses is completely inordinate when compared to that on the weapons. It needs to give from both sides.

Horses have been slightly amped though and IMO are almost at the sweet spot; the Hunter is now a formidable mount instead of something better swapped for a courser or saddle horse, but they still don't really last the distance against a troupe of, say, throwing-axe wielding nords

The hunter is okayish, yeah. I really don't understand why it's speed 43 (slower than a saddle horse!) and think speed 46 or 47 would be better. The warhorse and charger are a different story.

I guess the medium-heavy armors could be potentially useful, depending on your playstyle -- but even those aren't worth it for me, or for most people from what I can tell. Even there the extra armor doesn't make up for the cost and the sacrifice in mobility, IMO, unless you're an archer and more worried about enemy missiles than you are about melee.

Basically:

What it is now: "Hah, look at that idiot, he's bought heavy armor and/or a heavy mount. I'm gonna take him down!"
What it should be: "Oh crap, that guy's bought heavy armor and/or a heavy mount. I'm gonna need some help with this one!"

 

[Beaver]

Yes, while heavy armour does protect you versus lighter weapons, it gives you disadvantages against 2-handers. I'm either going medium armour the whole map, or light armour until about the end of the map, when I use up the money I've stocked to look cool... I said "to look cool" because it doesn't do much of a difference in any other regard.
Except when going in a group with other heavily armoured guys. But that does not change the fact that there's need for re-balance.

 

[okiN]

Exactly right. And even against one-handers the advantage is debatable, and minor at best, due to the extreme lack of mobility you suffer. It's intolerable.

 

[Jericho]

Absolutely agree with the OP that the armor system is completely broken. I would like to see not only the better armors provide greater genuine protection and far less encumbrance but also reflect their true strengths/weaknesses vs. specific damage types.

I thought horses in general were getting pretty close to where they need to be on the .670 patch but then the .671 patch took horses back to hobby-horse land. Chargers and warhorses are most especially insufferable tragedies and have always been since I joined the beta during .641 

 

[okiN]

The stuff about different damage types and realism etc is nice and all, but that would require a complete overhaul of the armor system, which we can safely assume isn't going to happen, at least before M&B2. Also, It sounds nice in theory, but you have to remember how those weaknesses worked IRL -- eg a plate armored fighter would be more vulnerable to thrusting than cutting... but that's mostly because the thrusts could be used to pierce weak points between the plates, such as the arm pits, groin etc. You wouldn't get a lot of spears going through the actual main plates of the armor. Angles of attack are also very important. How would you make the system accommodate all that stuff? Sounds a bit like utopia.

All that I want to see right now is for items to perform in a way that justifies their cost, and I've given ideas on how that could be achieved. As you say, this problem has been in the beta for long as there's been a beta, and I find it mind-boggling that nothing has been done to address it. People don't even talk about it much, because everyone's come to just accept it as fact. Well, I don't like it, and I think we have to talk about it as much as possible, because how else can we expect it to ever get fixed?

 

[Siloer]

What about just boost the armor stats....

Long great axe and great long bardiche are Over powered certaintly but i think high tiers Must handle This kind of weapons a bit more then Lower tiers

Also they must be slower

 

[okiN]

It's already been noted that simply boosting armor stats won't fix the problem. It'll make armored players almost impervious to swings from one-handed weapons cutting, which isn't necessarily desirable in itself, but worse yet they'll still be pathetically helpless against faster players with harder-hitting weapons due to the mobility restrictions. There are a lot of issues that make up this problem, and they all need to be addressed. It's far from impossible, though.

 

[Shik]

I agree with this suggestion completely. I often kill many more enemies and die far less in light armor than heavy armor; as soon as I use my money to purchase heavy armor, I start doing poorly. The encumbrance allows my enemies to easily step out of my attacking range, makes me arrow-fodder, and it also doesn't even provide any worthwhile protection. I'd go as far as to say that armor makes you lose. The only time it is ever useful is if you're fighting with ranged against a primarily ranged enemy.

 

[AoC]

Make the weight of weapon in hands affect character's movememnt more and weight of armour affect character's movemement less.

And highlight weight difference between weapons more (like in real life they had different weight).