Multiplayer Class description/guide as of version 1.143

Users who are viewing this thread

Yazzy

Sergeant
Multiplayer Class Guide:

With the coming patch to iron out some wrinkles in Captain Co-op mode, we thought we'd take the opportunity to address some of the concerns with faction and class balance in multiplayer.

We've completely rebalanced the multiplayer classes and factions so that they have unique primary and secondary functions.

Let's start with the breakdown!


The Kingdom of Sweden: 

Infantry: The 17th century tank, great with large weapons, tougher but slower than other infantry.

Weapon proficiencies:  Excellent with 2h weapons and polearms, not so great with one handed weapons and can use pistols in a pinch but with little accuracy.

Skills: Excellent Ironflesh skill and great Power Strike, but has the lowest Athletic skill of any infantry.

Ranged: Musketeers excel in one thing, shooting, shooting, and more shooting, they are fragile units and have a lower run speed that other ranged classes.

Weapon proficiencies: The highest Firearm proficiency of any ranged unit and middling grenade skills.
Terrible with melee weapons.

Skills: The lowest Ironflesh and athletic skills of any ranged class.

Cavalry: Great in mounted combat and good with ranged combat, this cavalry class is tough and versatile but average with riding skill.

Weapon proficiencies: Great 1h and polearm skills, good mounted range skill too.

Skills: Good Horse Archery, middling Riding skill, and low Powerstrike.


The Polish Commonwealth:

Infantry: A very solid and dependable infantry unit, well rounded in many aspects with few caveats.

Weapon proficiencies: Good with 1h weapons and polearms, middling with 2h weapons, bad with pistols.

Skills: Very good Athletics & Ironflesh. Good Powerstrike.


Ranged:  The 2nd best marksmen class, evened out by higher melee skills and run speed.

Weapon proficiencies: Excellent ranged profiency, middling to low melee & grenade proficiencies.

Skills: Middling Athletics and Low Ironflesh

Cavalry: The elite lancers of Eastern Europe

Weapon proficiencies: The highest polearm skill of an mounted unit, solid 1h weapon skill, and low but useable mounted archery.

Skills: Great Riding, Good Horse Archery, Power Draw, & Shield, low Powerstrike.


The Crimean Khanate:     

Infantry: A very fast, versatile and flexible on-foot unit.  Used correctly Crimean infantry can turn the tide of any battle.

Weapon proficiencies: Good Ranged and 1h weapon skills, middling polearm usage.

Skills: Above excellent Athletics, Good Shield, Powerdraw, and Ironflesh, low Powerstrike.

Ranged(mounted): The Crimean ranged unit comes in form of a mounted terror and is a force to be reckoned with, beware plated knights!

Weapon proficiencies: Excellent with bows and  middling 1h weapon skill.

Skills: Excellent Horse Archery, great Riding and Powerdraw.

Cavalry(lancers): Exceptionally fast and well versed in mounted arms, a competitive cavalry unit.

Weapon proficiencies: Very good 1h and polearm skill.

Skills: Excellent Riding and great Shield skills.


The Cossack Hetmanate: The Cossack faction, is highly varied and a bit difficult to play, but highly rewarding if one can grasp how to use this flexible and fast faction.

Infantry: Skilled in swords and pistols make this class dangerous at far and near but must be handled with care as they don't possess the toughest skin or armor.

Weapon proficiencies: Good 1h, polearm and ranged skills, low 2h skill.

Skills: Excellent Athletics, middling Ironflesh, low Powerstrike.

Ranged: Good ranged skills, faster than average run speed, and possess the highest grenade skill.

Weapon proficiencies: Very good Ranged and Grenade skills, good 1h weapon skill, low polearm skill.

Skills:  Middling Athletics. Low powerstrike and Ironflesh.

Cavalry: The best mounted gunmen of any faction, mounted Cossacks are fast and wild!

Weapon proficiencies: Great firearm skill. Good 1h and polearm skills.

Skills: Excellent Riding and Horse Archery, low powerstrike.


Moscovite Tzardom: Heavy hitting and aggressive across all classes, beware the Russian bears!

Infantry: The 2nd toughest but hardest hitting infantry unit around, one word: Poleaxe!

Weapon proficiencies: Excellent 2h weapon skill, great 1h weapon skill, middling polearm skill, poor ranged skill.

Skills: Excellent Powerstrike, great Ironflesh, and low Athletics.

Ranged: Similar to Cossacks in melee and ranged skill, but with one big difference...they pack a trusty Poleaxe.

Weapon proficiencies: Very good 2h and ranged weapon skills. Good grenade skill.

Skills: Middling Athletics, slightly higher Ironflesh than other ranged classes.

Cavalry: Hard hitting, versatile, but a bit slow, Moscovite Cavalry can surely make heads roll.

Weapon proficiencies: Great 1h weapon skill, good polearm skill, and middling ranged skill.

Skills: Very good Powerstrike, good Ironflesh, middling Riding & Powerdraw, and low Horse Archery.
 
I think a lot of us will come into this thread thinking, "have they addressed the issues with Sweden having God mode enabled in sieges?" But it looks like they still have the best armour, the best ranged and the best melee. Them running a bit slower and having mediocre mounted units doesn't really matter when they're all camped on the walls.

Still, I'll see how it goes...
 
The Kingdom of Sweden: 

Infantry: The best one in game. Can’t say anything wrong about them.

Ranged: The best one in game. Earlier they were on same level as Cossack musketeers (which was good in my opinion), now there is no other nation to stop them from range. This is strange to have one nation with two best classes in game !


The Polish Commonwealth:

Infantry: They are fine, but they lack of proper 2h weapon. Pikes are totally unbalanced, I can’t count them as proper 2h. Pikes should be used to stop horses (and they are fine in that purpose), but they should be too long to be useful in melee. Now they have 2 attack types (up/down) and they are fast like hell. I would suggest to make fastest Pikes much slower (like 10 points), and give Polish Infantry proper 2h weapon (less damage than Muscovite Pole-Axe, a bit shorter, with similar attack speed).

Ranged: They are nice to play right now.

Cavalry: It’s good they were buffed in last patch. I think Calvary overall (all nations) needs more health points. They shouldn’t die from 1 bullet, this is very annoying.


The Crimean Khanate:     

Infantry: In last patch their speed was buffed. I have no idea why – they are only ones to have shields ! More of this, they can take Musket and fight not that bad on range and in melee. It’s a bit too much.  Apart from that, Yataghan is just too fast weapon and you can use it with shield.

Ranged(mounted):  In 1.143 they are totally too good. One single arrow can kill all light and some middle armored targets. And that just 1 arrow ! Their attack speed is excellent, accuracy in last patch was buffed a lot. They can use best horses around, so they are basically unstoppable, they can outride any other unit in game, 1-2 accurate shots and almost everyone is dead. It’s too much.


The Cossack Hetmanate:

Infantry: Useless now. They don’t have muskets accuracy (decreased from 180 to 130), they don’t have proper 2h weapon, they don’t have armors (15 defense armor is a joke comparing to 50+ armors of other nations). In my opinion they were fine as they were. They were only faction to stop Swedish musketeers on range. Personally I liked playing Cossack with musket against Swedish army, it was very hard (Swedish has not only musketeers, but infantry as well), but very enjoyable. Right now whole Cossacks army is useless.

Ranged: Never saw in game good player used them. Useless, pistols are too inaccurate to be good in range combat. Maybe they should get muskets and 180 WPF, like Swedish musketeers has ? Cossacks infantry could become regular melee warriors with guns then (switch Infantry <-> Ranged with stat changes, 180 WPF for Ranged class in muskets, like Swedish has, better armor for Cossack Infantry).


Moscovite Tzardom:

Infantry: Very good.

Ranged: I don’t know why their accuracy was decreased in last patch (no matter the difference isn’t big, they are less accurate now than before, and I think before they were completely fine).


Overall:
- Horses are too easy to kill, they should receive only half damage from range (bullets / arrows)
- Players shouldn’t be able to carry more than 1 musket/gun same time
- Muskets / Pistols reloading speed should be decreased a bit (2-3 points)
 
Poul2 said:
The Cossack Hetmanate:
Infantry: Useless now. They don’t have muskets accuracy (decreased from 180 to 130), they don’t have proper 2h weapon, they don’t have armors (15 defense armor is a joke comparing to 50+ armors of other nations). In my opinion they were fine as they were. They were only faction to stop Swedish musketeers on range. Personally I liked playing Cossack with musket against Swedish army, it was very hard (Swedish has not only musketeers, but infantry as well), but very enjoyable. Right now whole Cossacks army is useless.
Ranged: Never saw in game good player used them. Useless, pistols are too inaccurate to be good in range combat. Maybe they should get muskets and 180 WPF, like Swedish musketeers has ? Cossacks infantry could become regular melee warriors with guns then (switch Infantry <-> Ranged with stat changes, 180 WPF for Ranged class in muskets, like Swedish has, better armor for Cossack Infantry).

Well, overall it is just balance matters.

2YAzzy
Ideas:

1. Stats boosts/nerf are simply not enough to balance cossacks. Since now in general the do not have any distinctive feature.
2. Probably some "Magic Shirt +5 close combat", like Janissary one's could help. I mean Cossacks Armor with stats +45 for inf.
3. Sweden should be nerfed a bit
4. Pikemans(bots) in MP mode are better w/o swords against players. Now coop is too easy to win at most maps with barriers like rivers/fences/walls
 
Yes, Cossacks should be increased to have the firearm skills of at least 150-160.

Bow shouldn't be as accurate as it is while riding a horse, wouldn't the arrow just jump up and down before shooting? I got a suggestion to this, while riding in higher speeds you should have less accuracy with bows. Khanate is way too overpowered now, they were even overpowered before this last patch with their new horse speeds. Let the speed have a negative effect of it.

Probably nerf the Swedish Infantry a little.
 
I've been thinking that the Muscovites fairly poor firearms situation could be alleviated a bit by providing pole-axes (at a cost) with a +firearms modifier... the things were designed to be used as supports, after all, and with their high STR requirement, this couldn't be (ab)used by other marksmen... might add a bit of a unique feel, and help compensate for the lack of modern guns...

Similarly, the trademark of the Cossacks could be "lots of guns" instead of "expert marksmen", by providing cheap(er than all other factions) access to firearms, particularly secondary pistols for just about everyone.

I'm not keen to see grenades, and particularly grenade skill, in the balancing equation, as their effectiveness is mainly situational - without a chokepoint, they're next to useless.

Horse archery seems fine, as the horses are fragile, and unlike musketry, massed horse archery produces diminishing returns...

@Leaffordes: The way I understand horse archery it, a higher speed, with the horse off the ground more frequently/longer should actually increase accuracy, as it is a much more "stable" platform while airborne, whereas the lower speeds are much more jolting (I'm neither a rider nor an archer though, so this is strictly theory/book knowledge...)

Edit: Probably worth re-iterating that on average, I don't think the balance is particularly skewed, only the maximum potential of the different factions is way off, as the more "pure" specialists benefit most from high skill and good teamwork, whereas the "hybrid" jack-of-all-trade classes that can somewhat fend for themselves in any situation gain a lot less.
 
Poul2 said:
- Horses are too easy to kill, they should receive only half damage from range (bullets / arrows)
- Players shouldn’t be able to carry more than 1 musket/gun same time
- Muskets / Pistols reloading speed should be decreased a bit (2-3 points)

I disagree.  I think that you should be able to carry a musket AND pistol.  Two muskets is a bit much though, I would agree with that.

As for the reloading.  Keep it the way it is.  Longer reloads means a dragged out battle.  I think the reloads are perfect the way they are.  Same for the accuracy of the firearms. 
 
RalliX said:
I feel the moscovites could use some shields for their infantry.
They are 2nd best Infantry in game, they aren't far from Swedish Infantry, so they don't need any corrections.
Infantry from Poland and Cossacks needs some attention - they lack of 2h weapons, so they are very weak, almost useless against heavily armored targets (bounces). I understand why Musketeers don't have 2h weapons, but Infantry which best weapon is sabre ? Even musketeers can take sabres, and they also have range attack ability.
Infantry definatelly needs 2h weapons - right now only Swedish and Muscovite have them. Khanate Infantry is a bit different - they have shields and very (too ?) quick weapons, they can take musket, so they don't need 2h that badly.
 
The Commonwealth does have (Good) Cekans, which are the best anti-armour 1h weapons.... and the regular version is really cheap at just 250, you can probably back that up with some armour and a pistol right away...

Presumably, the Cossacks aren't intended to melee heavy inf, but to kite with their pistols, which isn't working too well right now, and if it did, it'd probably infuriate the heavy inf players who would then find themselves the victim of such "cheap" attacks...


Edit: Starting money/money in general is another factor that could be quite crucial - the higher it is, the more it benefits those with powerful high-end gear, at 1k, a Swedish musketeer will have his Miquelet right away without having to work for it at all...
 
jackx said:
@Leaffordes: The way I understand horse archery it, a higher speed, with the horse off the ground more frequently/longer should actually increase accuracy, as it is a much more "stable" platform while airborne, whereas the lower speeds are much more jolting (I'm neither a rider nor an archer though, so this is strictly theory/book knowledge...)

Really, I didn't think of that, maybe it's so :grin:. Well I thought the accuracy got decreased at greater speed cause of the heavier movements made from the horse, and that the riding in slow speeds wouldn't even effect the aiming that much since there's only "smooth" movements developed were of at higher speeds, the movements gets a little bit more rough, but then as you said when the horse is airborne it should steady the arrow but bump it a lot more when trampling again since it's a harder fall. But then again, I believe that the body as well gets more unbalanced while riding in higher speeds which would effect you're aiming more.

I've not read any facts about this though, this was just my thinking.





 
Capt_Smith77 said:
Poul2 said:
- Players shouldn’t be able to carry more than 1 musket/gun same time

I disagree.  I think that you should be able to carry a musket AND pistol.  Two muskets is a bit much though, I would agree with that.
One musket/pistol is enought. There is no worse thing, playing as a warrior, than attacking musketeer with few guns. He hits you once for almost whole hp, and then take off pistol from close range... huge chance you won't survive another bullet.
Give player just one shot, and if he misses, well that's his problem. Carrying more guns than one is completely unfair on the battlefield.
If you want to have two shots, take Double-Barelled Carabine or Double-Barelled Pistol. They are made for this purpose, with them you will lose some accuracy. Right now Musket / Pistol combo is much more effective, because you have always best accuracy possible from musket, and in close range you can take pistol out.
In my opinion only with Double-Barelled guns, you should be able to shot more than once (losing accuracy for a second shot possibility).
 
Back
Top Bottom