Improve archery for the AI

[Admiral Nelson]

I for one am sick and tired of my archers failing to hit the target that they are aiming at.
The AI seems to be very inaccurate when firing bows, particularly named characters.
For instance:
I have both Borcha and Marnid
Marnid has an archery proficiency of 185
Borcha has an archery proficiency of 173
They are both level 39
They both have War Bows.
It takes them both about 20 arrows before they manage to hit someone, and usually it's not the person they aim for. They even manage to miss if the enemy is only a few feet away. It's mad and very frustrating.
I hope you will take the time to address this 'problem', and thank you in advance if you do.

I will answer any questions.

 

[Subotai]

It seems fine to me at the moment

 

[Dain Ironfoot]

Then you're blind if you haven't seen the shuffling dance AI troops do instead of firing. It really makes archers utterly useless.. they won't even fire most of the time.. just shuffle.

 

[Admiral Nelson]

That doesn't seem to be a problem for me.
Anyways, i'll see what i can do about a screenie.

 

[Dain Ironfoot]

Try getting more than 3 bow wielding troops. Heck, get last days and try and play with low tier elven troops. Order them to hold ground. They'll shuffle. They'll dance. They'll boogie.They'll ocasionally fire an arrow at super long range. They'll leave you cursing them as you imagine the damage they could've done to the enemy if they'd just stood still and fired. Then they'll pull out a melee weapon and charge. Then they'll die. If they do manage to kill the enemy, they'll keep their melee weapon out and charge across the map for a while before remembering they have a bow and drawing it. Of course by then they're scattered and isolated. Then they die.

 

[Admiral Nelson]

This is quite a frequent problem. I don't know why it hasn't been addressed or even brought up before now.
For me, the archers do dance around, but are accurate with their shots, and don't go too far with a melee weapon.
The companions stand still but aren't very accurate, and go further with a melee weapon.

 

[Shik]

Try getting more than 3 bow wielding troops. Heck, get last days and try and play with low tier elven troops. Order them to hold ground. They'll shuffle. They'll dance. They'll boogie.They'll ocasionally fire an arrow at super long range. They'll leave you cursing them as you imagine the damage they could've done to the enemy if they'd just stood still and fired. Then they'll pull out a melee weapon and charge. Then they'll die. If they do manage to kill the enemy, they'll keep their melee weapon out and charge across the map for a while before remembering they have a bow and drawing it. Of course by then they're scattered and isolated. Then they die.

That reminds me how many archers I've lost to river pirates just because of their god damn stupidity. The problem magnifies itself the more archers you have. I have 30 or so archers, there are about 30 or so river pirates. Archers start shuffling, they don't even manage to hit a single time, the draw out their melee weapons, 5 of them rush the river pirates, get their heads cleaved, then 5 more, then the rest come, and before I know it, half my archers are dead. I can't leave them alone and watch the battle even against river pirates. Having archers face off against any equal tier troop is a disaster beyond disaster. 40 marksmen, all slottered against a puny force of 26 vaegir horsemen + knights.

 

[DarkAnd]

archers only shot wen they are in a single line and there is something blocking them from leaving it (like walls crenelations)

while i was testing the sh2 mod it was a helm

i never saw a that way huge amount of troops getting killed by archers

i get only 12 heavily armored unmounted knights to climb the siege tower

all the other 30 died and all my heavily equipped 120 swordsmen get owned

whitout mentioning the 300 spearmen and the 50 archers that was killed (boot whitout armour)

and the enemy was whit just 100 archers and 20 crossbowmen

 

[Admiral Nelson]

Try getting more than 3 bow wielding troops. Heck, get last days and try and play with low tier elven troops. Order them to hold ground. They'll shuffle. They'll dance. They'll boogie.They'll ocasionally fire an arrow at super long range. They'll leave you cursing them as you imagine the damage they could've done to the enemy if they'd just stood still and fired. Then they'll pull out a melee weapon and charge. Then they'll die. If they do manage to kill the enemy, they'll keep their melee weapon out and charge across the map for a while before remembering they have a bow and drawing it. Of course by then they're scattered and isolated. Then they die.

That reminds me how many archers I've lost to river pirates just because of their god damn stupidity. The problem magnifies itself the more archers you have. I have 30 or so archers, there are about 30 or so river pirates. Archers start shuffling, they don't even manage to hit a single time, the draw out their melee weapons, 5 of them rush the river pirates, get their heads cleaved, then 5 more, then the rest come, and before I know it, half my archers are dead. I can't leave them alone and watch the battle even against river pirates. Having archers face off against any equal tier troop is a disaster beyond disaster. 40 marksmen, all slottered against a puny force of 26 vaegir horsemen + knights.

I really find that quite depressing.
I am still quite surprised that the devs didn't sort out this problem earlier.
It seems quite a few people are suffering, and i'm sure quite a lot more are too.
I PLEAD TO THE DEVS TO SORT THIS OUT ASAP.

 

[Alec{zacool}]

I find that the archers are good, its just the way that you use them. In The Last Days, I would have every single warrior an archer. And I tend to fight in hilly terrain. So when they come to a hill they split up. So there isn't so much of the shuffling. So they fire more. Also. I have seen them fire heaps one fight, they held their ground on a hill on one side of a river. And they stayed put because they could see every blumin' enemy. So they fired! Constantly, Only about 7 enemys got to my men. They were all injured though. So they got massacred.

-Alec

 

[Momaw]

Archers 'can' work, especially in TLD where their skills are higher across the board (I would argue that TLD's archers are how it's supposed to be, but that's probably just me).  Usually to make them work you need a hill.  A stee hill.  This forces them to spread out more (because they can't climb up the hill quickly),  and lets them shoot over eachother.  It looks and sounds awesome when you get a bunch of archers all being unstupid.

But yeah.  The real problem with archers is their dancing, not their individual accuracy.  If they would line up properly and volley their arrows at the enemey, they would score hits through sheer saturation, which is how battlefield archery realistically worked.  Dain nicely summed up how archery in M&B usually works.  Sometimes, sometimes, throuh some mystic combination of terrain and placement they will do their thing properly, but it's not at all reliable.

 

[Orion]

I do believe some basic form of formations will be implemented in the next release, or at least that's what I've been hearing. I do know for a fact that there will be gameplay changes, including fixes for the stupid AI.

 

[Admiral Nelson]

Jolly Jolly!

 

[Shik]

If archers would line up and fire rather than dance, hopefully in the next version, then they could equal, or even beat equal tier troops like knights or guards through the sheer number of arrows slicing through the air.

 

[Haupper]

Although right now their senseless dancing permit us to solo them... I might miss it with the upcoming version 

 

[Alec{zacool}]

OK, I found while playing 0.751, that the Archer AI is waay better than the archer AI in 0.808, the archers spread out and only fight melee when the enemy is about half a metre away.

Heres a video I made and while you watch it, you will notice that the archers are actually smart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAFt8e8JNKc

Its my first video....but you will notice that the archers don't just clump in a group, they don't fire if there is an Allie blocking the way COMPLETELY.

Anyway, watch it and you will see what I mean.

-Alec

 

[nauhziy]

It seems ok to me if you ask me.

 

[Alec{zacool}]

Are you talking about my video? Well, that was a 0.751 video...Armagan changed the AI for the archers and now they kinda suck.

 

[avatars10]

the archers/crossbowmen are ok. except when they miss. i was killing a rive pirate when my crossbowman shot the river pirate, missed, headshoted me and knocked me out

 

[Dain Ironfoot]

The funny thing is that enemy archers don't seem to have much of the same trouble.. they tend to halt as soon they get line of fire then stay in one place (albeit rather single mindedly) plus they wait a lot longer before switching to melee (stupidly in some cases.. how many times have we all hacked down archers with bows equipped) and are nowhere near as likely to chase...