Bowmen and crossbowmen balance

[Ben]

There is no use in going back if you win the fight.

I was referring to the side with dead axefighters and only xbows. The loser sometimes might try and get some kills by shooting-and-going-back. Xbows can't do that.

It's sickening for me, people cry about something, they get what they want, and after a while they want to change it back. Recently people were talking about the farm patch, saying it's not that good after all; blablabla. People leaving the game because 'it's not good for them'. Seriously? Was TSK/TPR any good for you? Where you didn't even need melee troops? Make up your mind.

That's called "testing," Dark Lord. It is normal to tweak things back-and-forth when testing.

You call it testing when people leave the game because of a small change, I call it crying. Especially if we relate it to the original game; we all liked TSK/TPR, Remake is much better, are we happy? Yes, but if one change is wrong we leave the game, because then it 'just sucks'.

I see what you mean. I can understand if they don't find it fun anymore, because fun is the most important part. But leaving the game when you get the changes you demanded is pretty lame. However, you can expect lots of negative feedback while testing. That's normal. There's a right and wrong way to provide your feedback, though.

@George

I think that it would be better to just decrease the attack of swordfighters, first. Like I said before, huge indirect effects can happen from small changes. I think that a very, small decrease in swordfighters' attack (not necessarily knight, though) would help with the current balance. Axefighters would be able to survive much longer against swordfighters, making crossbowmen more valuable. Also, militia (another unit who is dying) might even be able to do more damage against swordfighters.

[Lewin]

There is no use in going back if you win the fight.

I was referring to the side with dead axefighters and only xbows. The loser sometimes might try and get some kills by shooting-and-going-back. Xbows can't do that.

Well they can, but they take longer to reload than it takes for them to walk 1 tile, so you can't step backwards shooting on every tile. You could do it on every 2nd tile, and because crossbowmen are more likely to kill with each shot than bowmen, this should still result in a reasonable number of kills. If you COULD shoot on every tile as you retreat then you would be shooting faster than crossbowmen normally do, which is another form of the halting exploit (where you halt your crossbowmen at the right moment to skip the reloading animation). So there is a good reason for this, I get the feeling that people still think we changed it just to annoy everyone

@George

I think that it would be better to just decrease the attack of swordfighters, first. Like I said before, huge indirect effects can happen from small changes. I think that a very, small decrease in swordfighters' attack (not necessarily knight, though) would help with the current balance. Axefighters would be able to survive much longer against swordfighters, making crossbowmen more valuable. Also, militia (another unit who is dying) might even be able to do more damage against swordfighters.

Then swordfighters will become the "useless" ones and axefighters/knights/crossbowmen will always be better.

[Shadaoe]

Let's face it, there will always be an unit that most people won't ever do after PT. Your iron must be spent on a low amount of units and you can't do everything. So either you do mass xbows or mass swordfighters (and a few knights bonus if you like doing it but well). When people massed xbows, it was like "the worse thing on earth", now it's "even worse" because we mass swordfighters and not xbows.
I agree that xbows are a bit under bowmen right now in the game, but if you make them viable again, people will start massing them again and we'll have the EXACT SAME RESULT AS BEFORE THE CHANGES (sorry for caps I think it's quite important for those who ask for changes). So people, if you plan to just complain in the next release "xbows are overpowered you only do these iron units !", don't suggest changes.

My main argument being that iron units will always (at least that's my opinion), be a mass of one type of units per player, and each time you chane the balance this massed unit type can change, but in the end it's a vicious circle.

I agree that xbows must be brought back into the game though,

Regards

[WollongongWolf]

A realistic and good solution is making the Xbow bolt travel faster. At TeamSpeak I agreed with [R.A] Madgamer who also participated in match, that having fast projectile animation with bolts, adds variety and makes Xbow worthy.

The idea is they recharge slower but miss less = +accuracy.
I felt today I was wasting iron because archers were owning Xbows, and in same quantities 20 vs 20 (using micro you know).
Archers shoot faster and then go back while the Xbow bolt is falling... bolt should reach objective faster.

To come to what I think is the biggest problem, xbows just aren't reliable enough to kill bows. Speeding up missile speed sounds good to me, another idea might be giving xbows, like shields, a bonus against archers (don't ask me how to make that realistically feasible), so they are still as weak as they are, but stand a bigger chance surviving a bowshot.

About pikes/lances not being used: I think the main problem is that horses aren't used that much anymore. When there are more horses, you get more pikes, which is why there basically are pikes. So perhaps better try to get more horses in the game. Reduce the amount of corn a horse needs? Make the building cheaper (but sprites :S). For me, a stable is very expensive/takes a long time to build, uses a lot of corn while producing very few horses.

Horses are the main counter of bows (since they move fast and can quickly sneak by right?), so we also got our counter for bows. One side has a lot of horses, so the other side goes to pikes. The other side responds by leaving horses out going for the melee troops again and we get the circle round, and the other side may choose to hop to horses and the circle is round.

I wasn't a fan of the old xbow+lances game, since lances seemed stronger than axemen and they are a counter to horses. So I wouldn't say nerf those swords to make pikes stronger, rather make horses more common (not necessairily strengthen!) and pikes will be seen more).

[-George Stain-]

WollongongWolf, I don't need pikes or lancers to kill horses at this moment. Trust me. xbows are good as they are now, but nobody choicing them becouse of swordfighters and even bowmens..

Ben, I rather will see changed stats of all swords, axes, horses in testing, and than maybe putting changes back to normal

btw for me militia is good as it now.

[Ben]

@George

I think that it would be better to just decrease the attack of swordfighters, first. Like I said before, huge indirect effects can happen from small changes. I think that a very, small decrease in swordfighters' attack (not necessarily knight, though) would help with the current balance. Axefighters would be able to survive much longer against swordfighters, making crossbowmen more valuable. Also, militia (another unit who is dying) might even be able to do more damage against swordfighters.

Then swordfighters will become the "useless" ones and axefighters/knights/crossbowmen will always be better.

Not necessarily. If the change is very small, then it won't render swordfighters useless.

[Jeronimo]

problem is that you more likeli spend your iron for swordsmens, I feel like aiming time for bowmens will be good between old aiming time and actual aiming time. this is my sugestion for test. at this moment bows and swords is better than axes and xbows IMO.

This would be the simplest and correct Solution. Archers are the "problem" (too good).
Don't forget why the "militia rush tactic" is nowadays extinct in top matches.

I'm not big fan of suggestions such as reducing percentages, etc... I like the current melee chains (iron has to be supreme in that sense).

[Romek]

i know this is offtopic, maybe a mod can fix thatfor us (see ben you got something to do right now! )

but no one complained about bowmen too strong in the shieldpatch. but since the shieldpatch many things changed, for example:
- the shoot and halt glitch is fixed, making shoot and go back movements with crossbowmen not possible anymore, where the bowmen still can do it.
- the farm patch made farms more effecient, exactly as we asked for. We did forget the consequenses of this, and now we see it. Leather can be easily massed now making mass bowmen a very powerfull strategy.

Please consider this in the balance discussion, since not only the reduced aiming time buffed the bowmen.

Dicso is right.
X bows are not in game because now they are unmicroable. You cant push enemy with xbows because they are to slow(they cant shoot and go back/forward)
Imo there is no such thing now like too good swordfighters or too good archers. They are exacly like they should be. According to my games(I am playing many games with players like Pizza,Blud,Ben,koczis,To and much more TS people) I can say that every single unit is now in usage - every single unit except xbow....
The best idea to fix that broken unit now is imo :
1.] Bring back to the game good old shoot and forward/back combo.
2.] Boost it somehow - (increase accuracy or attack speed)

[dicsoupcan]

i know this is offtopic, maybe a mod can fix thatfor us (see ben you got something to do right now! )

but no one complained about bowmen too strong in the shieldpatch. but since the shieldpatch many things changed, for example:
- the shoot and halt glitch is fixed, making shoot and go back movements with crossbowmen not possible anymore, where the bowmen still can do it.
- the farm patch made farms more effecient, exactly as we asked for. We did forget the consequenses of this, and now we see it. Leather can be easily massed now making mass bowmen a very powerfull strategy.

Please consider this in the balance discussion, since not only the reduced aiming time buffed the bowmen.

Dicso is right.
X bows are not in game because now they are unmicroable. You cant push enemy with xbows because they are to slow(they cant shoot and go back/forward)
Imo there is no such thing now like too good swordfighters or too good archers. They are exacly like they should be. According to my games(I am playing many games with players like Pizza,Blud,Ben,koczis,To and much more TS people) I can say that every single unit is now in usage - every single unit except xbow....
The best idea to fix that broken unit now is imo :
1.] Bring back to the game good old shoot and forward/back combo.
2.] Boost it somehow - (increase accuracy or attack speed)

as a suggestion i might want to add to make leatherproduction a little bit slower ( the animal breeder takes a slightly longer break) in order to make leather less easily massed again.

[The Dark Lord]

1.] Bring back to the game good old shoot and forward/back combo.

You must mean 'terrible and abusive'?

[Ben]

What he means is the shoot-and-go back that bowmen can do; which would be to decrease the reload time of crossbowmen back to that of bowmen. That way, bowmen won't so easily destroy crossbowmen in shoot offs.

I like where Disco is going with the slower leather production (but not completely sure if I like the idea of making it worse). However, I believe that any method done to do this should be done with extreme caution. Should we make the swinefarm run slower, than bread will get a boost over sausage, for example. I think the best way might be to increase the growth-time of corn. Farms are a bit too good at the moment, I think. When two farms were needed for a swinefarm, it was much more important to decide what to do with your corn. Now, it's just go for two quick swinefarms and maybe a stable or another two swinefarms later on. With fish, it's usually pretty easy to go for no-bread strategies since pigs can be gathered in large amounts so early in the game.

[Romek]

1.] Bring back to the game good old shoot and forward/back combo.

You must mean 'terrible and abusive'?

You must mean "shoot and halt"?

[Jeronimo]

@Romek: Some posts ago... Lewin already took a decision respect this.
He will reduce Archers aiming time, and keep Xbows as are now... I personally agree with Lewin's resolution.

Archers are the easiest unit to spam (after militia) -> "Leveling archers down" is better to bring back more effectiveness to Militia spam rushes... which nowadays are totally useless vs a skilled tactician using Swords walls + Archers... You can confirm this with honesty.

[dicsoupcan]

@Romek: Some posts ago... Lewin already took a decision respect this.
He will reduce Archers aiming time, and keep Xbows as are now... I personally agree with Lewin's resolution.

Archers are the easiest unit to spam (after militia) -> "Leveling archers down" is better to bring back more effectiveness to Militia spam rushes... which nowadays are totally useless vs a skilled tactician using Swords walls + Archers... You can confirm this with honesty.

i hope you mean increase aiming time, otherwise they shoot even faster

[Jeronimo]

Haha yes! I was thinking something like "reduce archers fire rate", while writing that.
But you get the idea already (not suggested by me, but came from Lewin 1st responses).