Warband has now become like any other fps to me.

[CryptoCactus]

This is largely why I quit playing multiplayer. Over time, as the beta progressed and especially after release, the game started to feel more and more like a medieval FPS. Most pub teams (can't speak to competitive play) started becoming more and more archer-heavy, until merely getting to battle without looking too much like a pincushion became an exercise in annoyance. I still pop into a MP server every three or four months, usually only for a round or two, but I genuinely just don't have fun with it anymore.

I honestly expected to see a large swath of no-ranged servers crop up after public release/modsys release, but they just... didn't. So I assumed I was in the minority in my desire for a less-ranged experience and went back to SP (which is still ****ing excellent).


I do worry a bit that part of the reason for the large number of ranged players is not because they actually enjoy it particularly, but only that there's not much reason NOT to take a ranged class. Melee is determined more by personal skill than equipment or stats, so any archer that's decent at melee can stand (more or less) toe-to-toe against decent infantry. Considering that, it might seem silly to remove your capacity for rapid, massive damage over distance just to add a shield and somewhat heavier armor.

 

[Baron Conrad]

This is largely why I quit playing multiplayer. Over time, as the beta progressed and especially after release, the game started to feel more and more like a medieval FPS. Most pub teams (can't speak to competitive play) started becoming more and more archer-heavy, until merely getting to battle without looking too much like a pincushion became an exercise in annoyance. I still pop into a MP server every three or four months, usually only for a round or two, but I genuinely just don't have fun with it anymore.

I honestly expected to see a large swath of no-ranged servers crop up after public release/modsys release, but they just... didn't. So I assumed I was in the minority in my desire for a less-ranged experience and went back to SP (which is still ******** excellent).


I do worry a bit that part of the reason for the large number of ranged players is not because they actually enjoy it particularly, but only that there's not much reason NOT to take a ranged class. Melee is determined more by personal skill than equipment or stats, so any archer that's decent at melee can stand (more or less) toe-to-toe against decent infantry. Considering that, it might seem silly to remove your capacity for rapid, massive damage over distance just to add a shield and somewhat heavier armor.

Just so you know, PRT server turns off ranged weapons on Monday evenings.

 

[CryptoCactus]

Oh hey there Gaunt.

Maybe I'll pop by PRT on Monday then. I'm sure I'm complete garbage now, but I suppose that's okay.

 

[AWdeV]

A normal medium-equipped 2h user, such as a Rhodok footman equipped with a gambeson, kettle hat and glaive should not be near useless and forced to take a shield and pick/cleaver as well.

Also, please remember the threads topic:

Well, why not? It's a choice you've made. You get a weapon that kicks ass against infantry and cavalry alike but you just know a padded sweater won't work a whole lot against shooting and throwing foes?

Firstly, as others said, these "padded sweaters" are quite heavy and offer relatively good protection. Secondly - my weapon actually is worse against infantry than sword and shield! It's significnantly slower and harder to block with - the higher damage does not make up for that. It's better against cavalry than sword and shield - but then, darts/javelins or a one handed spear are just as good against cavalry and let you have a shield.

If it would at least be balanced in a way that allowed me to make this decision (taking offensive qualities over defensive qualities), I'd not complain. The problem is that in almost no combat situation, not having a shield will be of any use - and you'll not even get close to a melee fight if you don't play the game like an FPS, running from cover to cover and hiding there. I don't feel like on a medieval battlefield then, I feel as if I was being shot at with assault rifles, hence the OP complaining not about "This game is not playable" but "This game plays too much like an FPS".

Oh, the game could definitely do with a bit of a reworked balance, I'm not disputing that. Long-range archery is rather too effective but what I was getting at with the padded sweater comment is that bringing no shield to a battlefield really only became popular when plate armour was prevalent enough to keep you from being shot. I also know what the OP meant, I just think it's not that odd that bringing a shield with you is a wise choice.
There's also a few balance changes in melee that I'd like to see but I have no idea how or what should work. Glaives and other big polearms make far too big and slow slashes to actually be useful but making those slashes faster would make them overpowered and ridiculous. Shorter, faster and controlled movements would be needed. Weapons actually making use of the range they have is needed as well.

 

[Spec]

Mind you, the (shieldless) swiss pikemen did at first not use any heavy armor until they had looted enough of that in their battles. It's not that shieldless, lightly armored (and a gambeson is indeed rather useful against piercing damage - something that should also be portrayed in more detail in-game) units were never in use. Although yes, shields started disappearing from the battlefield only in the late middle ages when firearms were invented and cuirasses replaced the maille armor. Still; even before there is evidence of two-handed polearms and such, they must have been used, and these troops could not have carried large shields at the same time.

 

[FrisianDude]

Uh, yes, but there's a reason why the Swiss pikemen didn't become successful until after the advent of firearms which made a mockery of most armour. Didn't matter much if you were wearing poofy pants and fluffy sleeves or a gambeson and a hauberk, you'd hardly stop a bullet. Especially taking actual gunpowder-artillery into account, of course.

 

[Spec]

They have existed before firearms became too effective though, when they were just another variant of ranged weaponry, and didn't lose every battle. I'm just saying it's not impossible to fight without shield - and as I said, if not the pikemen, then all the users of heavy polearms etc before them.

 

[Reapy]

O ahoy crypto I was sort of expecting the same thing but, I guess not the case, really not even as much server variety available now in the US as there was in beta.  Also i'm not 100% sure all melee is the proper 'solution' though I would really love to be able to pull up some sorta 5v5 melee or less situations at whim, or 5 v 1 sometimes.

I think part of the reason I don't generally like battle is on most maps it feels like there is this mandatory 3 to 4 minute period where you sit with your shield up and wait behind some rocks for people to run out of ranged weapons or get close enough that they aren't covered by ranged weapons so you can start fighting people utilizing the manual block thing. The other option is either to use a ranged weapon yourself or use a shield.

Using a shield wouldn't be bad, except you can't manual block, so really the most creative thing you can do is double feint people from time to time, which generally gets boring.

I hardly ever use a shield when I play, except really to get close so I can actually play, and even then I usually pick a free shield. But really fighting most anywhere with out a shield and you are bound to turn into a human pin cushion. The funny thing is I love shields and how they look, have always used 1h shield in any rpg's I play that allow it and have loved it in plenty of console style games where you might be blocking/redirecting things. It's just warband's shield use isn't too interesting over time.

If you weren't going to touch archery, some other solutions would be to (and of coarse this is vague and unspecific) improve shield use to make it interesting, and/or provide some additional defense against archery and throwing weapons.  I think it would be cool if you could somehow dodge/catch/block 1 of every 2 throwing weapons hurled at you if you did it right. So say a person is standing in front of you chain throwing weapons, if you were good at the timing, you could knock away one of them ( think that lurtz aragorn fight in the lotr movie where he bats away the dagger coming at him)... but if the person throws again immediately you'd have no way to block it. 

If that were the case I would tighten up the throwing weapon accuracy, try to make it actually hit the center of the cursor with a narrower throwing box. But that way if you pivot and suddenly see a guy with his throwing weapon up at you, or say while you are fighting a person and someone comes up behind with a thrown weapon up, you can do something about it more so than just trying to use your current opponent as a shield. But you couldn't really block sustained fire or 2 players working together.  Again it would work best as something that must be learned as well, not just autoblocked.

So with a shield you sort of inherently have this defense anyway, but again the shield is boring! I know for a bit we had manual block with the shield == reduced damage to the shield at the risk of getting hit, but was removed due to chunkiness, which I sort of agree with, but at least for a time it made shield use more interesting if you wanted it to be, or just the same as before if you held the button down. Perhaps there needs to be more to the melee system first before shields can have additional properties that balance themselves out or have additional mechanics.

You could do something like projectiles are blocked normally but melee hits require manual block or you are faced with a stun that is long enough such that someone can spam you over and over till the shield breaks or you properly block. The stun would need to be animated so you get an understanding that you have or haven't blocked properly.

Well anyway, the archer argument is always the 'fun' aspect. Said to death I guess. Archer can put out killing damage (even if it is not the killing blow) without any danger to themselves and can touch anywhere they can see, esp with a great archer. That's the problem, that's why people get angry the most at them. They are up on a wall and you can't do anything to stop them, where as if someone kills you in melee you know you at least had a chance to get them yourself.

Sure it's historically accurate, but so is dieing of the plague, and that's just no fun at all

 

[MadocComadrin]

If you weren't going to touch archery, some other solutions would be to (and of coarse this is vague and unspecific) improve shield use to make it interesting, and/or provide some additional defense against archery and throwing weapons.  I think it would be cool if you could somehow dodge/catch/block 1 of every 2 throwing weapons hurled at you if you did it right. So say a person is standing in front of you chain throwing weapons, if you were good at the timing, you could knock away one of them ( think that lurtz aragorn fight in the lotr movie where he bats away the dagger coming at him)... but if the person throws again immediately you'd have no way to block it. 

This, plus at point-blank range, you should be able to block throwing weapons with an up-block. Likewise, archer-kick needs a slight range bump. At the moment, for some bows and crossbows, I literally have to get to the point where the weapon clips through my shield so that holding an attack makes the archer-kick happen. At this close range, the clipping actually allows them to shoot me and have my shield basically not count.

 

[Night Ninja]

It's kinda been talked about, but we all agree, I think, that running around naked should be a huge disadvantage.

A normal medium-equipped 2h user, such as a Rhodok footman equipped with a gambeson, kettle hat and glaive should not be near useless and forced to take a shield and pick/cleaver as well.

Have to agree. There's that famous quote from the First crusade about footmen still fighting on although looking like porcupines from all the turkish arrows stuck in their gambesons.
Obviously, those bows would have been on the weaker side (although the Turks did use composite bows) and it would have been a whole other matter with a longbow or stronger eastern bow. But a mailed (assuming an aketon beneath) warrior with a good helmet should be virtually impervious to any lesser bow, at least where protected.

This. Someone in a padded jack should be able to shrug off the vast majority of arrow hits.

 

[killer-blead]

Damn you Mabons, See what you have done with your thread!? 

 

[African]

I wouldn't mind if they made the free bows a lot weaker against high end armor.

As it is now there's no reason to use the warbow or longbow over the short or nomad bow. If the free bows were given a large nerf against heavy armor and the high damage bows were given a slight buff against them it would open up some new strategies and make the game more fun, imo.

I was thinking about how cool the longbows look this morning, it's too bad they're so bad.

 

[CryptoCactus]

O ahoy crypto I was sort of expecting the same thing but, I guess not the case, really not even as much server variety available now in the US as there was in beta.  Also i'm not 100% sure all melee is the proper 'solution' though I would really love to be able to pull up some sorta 5v5 melee or less situations at whim, or 5 v 1 sometimes.

Hey Reapy! Good to see you.

Yeah, I agree that complete removal of ranged weapons isn't the ideal solution, and I'm not opposed to ranged play in and of itself (as evidenced by my avatar, heh). It's just.. too much as it is now, I think. And I know I could just play duel servers if there are still any of those around, but dueling outside of an actual battle/combat situation is pretty one-dimensional and I get bored with it after a while.

I also expected to see some sort of class-limiting mod or server option shortly after release (as in no more than x% archers, cav, whatever), but maybe that's not possible, I don't know. And of course class-limiting comes with its own set of problems (lol gtfo noob fgt i am master archer, y u go archur if u terrible u make us lose, etc).

edit:
Also, I'm surprised there are (I assume) no servers running mods like, ah, Losey's RCM (I think that was the name... realistic combat model?) wherein heavy armor was nigh-impervious to ranged fire but lightly-armored troops could be shredded. I'm not saying that's the ideal solution either, and I can't (and don't care to) speak to how realistic it actually was, but it might make archery and countering archery more interesting.

Ah well.

 

[Spec]

What I'd love about armor would be indeed having them act differently depending on damage type. I keep hearing how Gambesons were better against arrows than maille alone, but obviously worse against cuts, for instance.

 

[AWdeV]

Some thick padding would work a treat against blunt too. Problems isn't so much the armour but the way ranged weapons do damage. Bows and crossbows both do a substantial amount of pierce damage. An option would be to make that piercve damage cut instead which would mean they're still good against weaker armours but less so against the stuff you should be able to rely on for protection.
Better yet would be if damagetype would be decided by the ammunition instead of the weapon. Not only does that make more sense as the ammo actually hits the target but it would also make arrow diversity more sensible.

If a bow does a standard, say, 15 damage. A standard arrow could do cut damage and give a small bonus to the weapon, whereas the bodkin could do pierce but without the bonus. Barbed arrows are stylistically nice but they don't actually make a whole lot of sense if the arrows don't get pulled out.

I believe Outlawed has been working on a project that makes archery more realistic and thus less powerful over range, I'd love to see that in action too as that would be great both historically and gameplay-wise. It could actually revive Khergits as well as their main strength now is killing without getting caught. If you reduce their killing capacity at range then they need to get closer which means you're a whole lot more likely to catch them. Which, IIRC, was the biggest problem the Mongols would have had against a force of armoured and mounted knights. Shooting at range wasn't very ineffective and approaching them meant you'd get in their charging range while your horse was still pointing the wrong way.

edit; this is just some slightly tired brainstorming tho'.

 

[alabaman]

Evidently the strongest foe would be the one who has the ability of opening doors in Warband. He would minimize the danger of dying and could quite easily fire his crossbow at unsuspecting prey.

 

[Reapy]

Crypto you might want to see if you can jump in on the vikingr mod if you have a shot. For the us there is a GK one, I think they fill it up wed nights and sometimes there are a few people on it randomly on other nights. The mod is very well done and limits classes, archers with 18 arrows only and reduced accuracy/range. Throwing weapons come in packs of 2, so in general you can get some fun melee play, though its light on the 2 hander style and mostly is a 1h + shield emphasis.

 

[Magni]

I was thinking about how cool the longbows look this morning, it's too bad they're so bad.

They're only bad because they take so long to draw.  Meaning they will lose every time to the starter bows and really can't even plunk throwing spammers with a well placed shot.

The issue with archery lies more in there's no reason to upgrade ever compared to every other weapon/armor/horse.  Which if it means nerfing the starter bows (and short bow) I have no issue with.

However, if you do that the Sarranids need a 3rd bow (a horn bow?).

 

[Archonsod]

They're only bad because they take so long to draw.  Meaning they will lose every time to the starter bows and really can't even plunk throwing spammers with a well placed shot.

If you're dumb enough to be standing trying to draw the bow in the open you deserve to lose. Note the reticule takes far less time to adjust to a sidestep than it does to draw any bow. Consider the potential. Plus the longbow is a one or two hit kill on any archer, shortbows can take four or five unless they get a headshot.

 

[MadocComadrin]

Why are you archer-dueling with a long-bow (or a war-bow) anyway? Those are meant to take on heavily armored troops. Plus, if you decide to use it against another archer, you have to be opportunistic, or at least have cover.