v1.2.4 Changes
Hello warriors!With patch Beta v1.2.4 we’re introducing a number of Multiplayer balance changes based on the analytics data and the feedback you’ve provided to us here on the forums, Discords and elsewhere.
The lobby has been opened on Beta alongside a number of servers - allowing you to test the changes. We’re very much looking forward to your feedback! Please share it with us in the replies below.
Have a nice day and have fun with the new changes. See you all!
Overall
Some of the feedback we received was about the overusage of staggering animations. We slightly decreased their damage to discourage that and incentivize their usage for their functionality rather than as a semi-substitute for melee attacks.- Modified the base damage of all staggering animations from 3 to the following values:
- Kick: 2 Damage
- Small Shield Bash: 1 Damage
- Large Shield Bash: 2 Damage
- Two Handed Melee Bash: 2 Damage
- One Handed Melee Bash: 1 Damage
Using thrust attacks to the Head and Neck area in close combat often resulted in an unnaturally high damage dealt to the receiver. We reduced the multiplier to lower the damage.
- Reduced the Head and Neck pierce damage multiplier from 2.0 to 1.5 for all melee thrust attacks.
- The Ranged piercing attacks remain at the 2.0 multiplier.
- The Blunt and Cut damage types have a multiplier of 1.2.
Using a horse with an infantry class brought little to no penalties. This allowed for some unbalanced combinations - taking a cheap class, acquiring a suitable weapon and jumping on a horse to emmulate a Light Cavalry class. While we don’t think this should be outright banned through the game mechanics, we do believe there should be some skill penalties associated with going down this route. Cavalry classes will therefore better utilize fighting on horses than their infantry counterparts.
We’re also re-introducing the dismounting mechanic - with damage/class resistance values determining whether the player will be dismounted or not. This opens up a new way of countering horse riders (both cavalry and non-cavalry classes).
- Introduced drastically increased attack penalties for non-cavalry classes using mounts.
- Penalties are calculated using the Riding skill of each class. They’re most pronounced when the Riding skill is 0 and disappear at and above Riding skill 100.
- A 20% penalty on both melee and ranged parameters listed below is applied at 0 Riding skill (with the exception of the Ranged accuracy penalty which starts at 40%). These penalties are then scaled down as the Riding skill rises towards 100.
- Melee: Decreased attack swing and thrust speed
- Ranged: Decreased reload speed, readying speed, accuracy
- Adjusted the riding skill of all classes across all modes both for the Player characters as well as Troops in Captain mode:
- [Class]: [Player character] - [Troops]
- Light Infantry: 40 - 25
- Shock Infantry: 40 - 40
- Light Ranged: 40 - 50
- Skirmisher: 40 - 50
- Heavy Infantry: 50 - 60
- Heavy Ranged: 50 - 75
- Light Cavalry: 150 - 200
- Heavy Cavalry: 150 - 250
- Horse Archer: 150 - 250
- All Khuzait Player characters and Troops have an additional 25 bonus Riding skill.
- Re-introduced dismount combat effects and adjusted dismount resistances.
- In order to dismount a player you must use the appropriate weapon, hit one of the critical body parts (head,neck,chest or shoulders) and deal greater damage than the dismount resistance value of their class:
- Light Infantry: 25
- Shock Infantry: 30
- Light Ranged: 30
- Skirmisher: 35
- Heavy Infantry: 40
- Heavy Ranged: 35
- Light Cavalry: 50
- Heavy Cavalry: 70
- Horse Archer: 70
- All of the Khuzait Infantry have an additional 10 bonus resistance.
- A dismount tag has been added to several weapons which can be obtained through perks listed below. Some weapons dismount the enemy with swing while others with thrust attacks.
- Empire
- Menavlion Infantry: Longer Menavlion
- Courser: Cavalry Spear
- Cataphract: Spearhead
- Vlandia
- Voulgier: Billhook
- Vanguard: Cavalry Spear
- Knight: Lancer
- Battania
- Savage: Hammer
- Oathsworn: Cavalry Breaker
- Mounted Warrior: Line Breaker
- Sturgia
- Berserker: Two Handed Maul
- Varyag: Cavalry Breaker
- Druzhinnik: Lancer
- Khuzait
- Spear Infantry: Cavalry Breaker
- Nomad: Line Breaker
- Lancer: Glaive
- Aserai
- Skirmisher: Shield and Spear
- Guard: Bardiche
- Jawwal: Bamboo Spear
- Mamluke: Lancer
- Empire
- In order to dismount a player you must use the appropriate weapon, hit one of the critical body parts (head,neck,chest or shoulders) and deal greater damage than the dismount resistance value of their class:
With the newly re-introduced dismounts - Cavalry players have one more thing to worry about. Combat mechanics like knockbacks and knockdowns were so far rarely encountered in combat. To increase their frequency and to offset the additional risk posed by the dismount mechanic (especially when charging into the enemy cluster of players), we made the knockdowns more reliable by tweaking values associated with them - allowing Cavalry to disrupt enemy formations more effectively.
- Reduced the minimum amount of damage required for a mounted charging horse to knock down a player from 13 to 10.
- Adjusted the damage and speed of several horses:
- Empire War Courser: Increased charge damage from 6 to 7
- Khuzait Tarpan: Increased charge damage from 4 to 6
- Khuzait Makeb: Increase charge damage from 7 to 8
- Khuzait Steppe Tough Horse: Increased charge damage from 4 to 5
- Aserai Barb: Increased charge damage from 6 to 7
- Khuzait Steppe Horse: Increased speed from 173 to 177
Some of the weapon types have an unbalanced advantage against shields, while others aren’t as effective as they should be. We adjusted the values of shield damage multipliers to remedy that.
- Adjusted several shield damage multipliers:
- Axes: Remain at 1.4
- Maces (blunt damage): Increased from 0.5 to 0.7
- Swords (cut damage): Decreased from 1.0 to 0.7
- Ranged weapons:
- Javelins: Increased from 0.25 to 0.50
- Throwing Axes: Decreased from 1 to 0.6
- Bows and Crossbows: Increased from 0.1 to 0.15
Based on your feedback, we adjusted the ranged weapon usage in close combat. The increased angle in which the stagger effect triggers should minimize the unintended mechanic of using ranged weapons at such a short distance.
- (Already in v1.2.3) Increased the angle in which the stagger effect triggers when using a ranged weapon and being “hugged” by an enemy from 90 to 180 degrees.
- (Already in v1.2.3) Players that have a throwable weapon can now block with a shield without getting staggered. Trying to throw the weapon will, however, still stagger you.
Weapons
- Khuzait Ild
- Increased Swing Damage from 57 to 64
- Increased Thrust Speed from 90 to 93
- Decreased Thrust Damage from 36 to 35
- Khuzait Heavy Ild
- Increased Piercing Damage from 35 to 38
- Nordic Shortbow (used by Sturgia Hunters)
- Increased damage from 42 to 45
- Raider Axe
- Increased damage from 75 to 78
- Imperial Heavy Axe
- Increased length from 71 to 82
- Highland Axe
- Increased damage from 75 to 77
- Aserai Axe
- Increased damage from 71 to 75
- Javelins
- Increased ready speed from 0.650 to 0.800
- Increased release speed from 1.050 to 1.200
- Throwing Axes
- Increased ready speed from 0.650 to 0.750
- Increased release speed from 1.000 to 1.200
- Reduced inaccuracy penalty from 5.0 to 2.0 (results in greater maximum accuracy)
- Renamed the bows given by the Steppe Bow Khuzait class’ individual perks and slightly modified their statistics.
- Changed some weapon pieces used by the Battanian Long Spear, Khuzait Long Spear and Khuzait Spear.
- Renamed 3 spears (Khuzait Long Infantry Spear, Sturgian Long Infantry Spear, Battanian Long Infantry Spear) provided with the Cavalry Breaker perks and slightly adjusted their statistics.
Armors
- Sturgia Berserker
- Armor increased from 2 to 7
- Sturgia Varyag
- Armor increased from 42 to 45
- Vlandia Sergeant
- Armor decreased from 42 to 40
Perk Adjustments
- Adjusted the Full Barding perks.
- Increased Khuzait Full Barding perk armor from 24 to 26.
- Increased Sturgia and Aserai Full Barding perk armor from 26 to 28.
- Sturgia Druzhinnik, Aserai Mamluke and Khuzait Lancer Full Barding perks now reduce the ranged damage dealt to the horse by 25%.
- Increased the Hunter perk bonus from 50% to 60% (damage to mounts).
- Added Western Lance and removed Vlandian, Sturgian, Aserai Heavy lances from the Tournament Master perk weapon pool.
- Renamed the Vlandia Vanguard Half Barding perk to Barding.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Mobility perk for Khuzait ranged infantry to be applied while mounted as well.
Captain Mode Changes
- Decreased the Shield Strength Modifier which applies to all troops from 50% to 25%, making it easier to break shields.
- Removed the Aserai Spear from the Aserai Jawwal troop equipment pool. They are now all equipped with the Aserai Long Spear.
v1.2.5 Changes
Hello everyone, thank you for your feedback on Beta v1.2.4 MP changes - we’ve done a number of changes based on it. These changes are being included with the most recent Beta Patch v1.2.5 which is already accessible on Steam. The lobby and servers are open so feel free to test it all out!We increased penalties for horse riding of non-cavalry classes. All the previous penalties, which were set at around 20%, were increased to 30%. We also increased the weapon inaccuracy multiplier from 40% to 1500%, to make it sensible in-game.
- Introduced further ranged weapon penalties to non-mounted classes when riding. If a class has 0 riding skill, the below penalties will apply. These are then reduced and eventually removed when a class reaches 100 or above riding skill.
- Increased reload speed penalty and weapon readying speed penalty from 20% to 30%
- Increased the time needed to achieve maximum accuracy by increasing the penalty from 20% to 30%
- Increased the weapon inaccuracy multiplier from 40% to 1500% which will significantly widen the crosshair
We tweaked the get-up animation, which is used right after dismounting. From now on, players will get up faster and can use their block ability while trying to get up. With this change, we are trying to give dismounted players an opportunity to protect themselves, and not getting one-shot killed everytime they get dismounted.
- Increased the animation speed of getting up after being dismounted. You can now also start blocking at an earlier point while getting up.
To make the readability of dismounting weapons a lot more clear, we’ve changed the perk-based dismounting system (where players have the ability to dismount by choosing specific perks) to a more weapon based system. From now on, all of the two-handed axes and maces have the dismounting ability. So if you see someone wielding a huge two handed weapon, you need to watch out for them. There are only 2 extra weapons that are excluded from this rule, Glaives and Longer Menavlions. Both of them being huge weapons, it will be hard for you to miss them!
- Increased dismount resistances of cavalry classes:
- Light Cavalry: Increased from 50 to 75
- Heavy Cavalry: Increased from 70 to 85
- Horse Archers: Increased from 70 to 80
- Only the following weapons now have the ability to dismount players:
- All two-handed axes (including alternative usage axes)
- All two-handed maces
- Glaive (heavy and normal) and Longer Menavlion
To make things balanced with the newly adjusted dismounting feature and make cavalry have different tanky options, we changed the “Long Axe and Shield” perk of Druzhinnik to a more defensive perk named “Unbreakable“.
- Swapped the Sturgia Heavy Cavalry (Druzhinnik) "Long Axe and Shield" perk with "Unbreakable". The new perk features are:
- Stronger shield
- 15% Melee and Ranged damage reduction
- Imperial Heavy Axe:
- Decreased damage from 88 to 82
- Decreased length from 82 to 69 (reverted v1.2.4 change)
Crashes
- Fixed a server crash that occurred at the end of the match.
- Fixed a client crash that occurred after failing to connect to a custom server.
- Fixes
- Fixed a bug that allowed you to cancel the reload animation for bows and throwing weapons.
- Fixed a bug that prevented damage speed bonuses from being correctly calculated.
- Fixed a bug that prevented some perk effects from being applied.
- Fixed the incorrect reload speed value of "Replenished" and weapon damage bonus of "Strong Arm" perks according to their descriptions.
- Fixed a bug that prevented the map version on the Map Downloader popup from being correctly displayed, leading to false warnings.
- Fixed a bug that corrupted the terrain visuals when re-downloading a scene with the Map Downloader.
- Fixed a bug that caused spectators to be listed as team members on the HUD.
- Changes
- Updated the matchmaking rules to support populating existing games to full capacity during the warmup phase.
- Added the ability to mark custom servers as favorites.
- Added the ability to set tickrate for dedicated custom servers using the "/tickrate" command line argument or the "set_server_tickrate" console command.
- Players now need to download all missing maps being played on the server via the Map Downloader before joining.
(didn't test those yet). Having cavalry formations being able to charge through inf formations with more power at the cost of making it more challenging for cav players when doing so against pike formations seems very fun to me ☝
