Bowmen and crossbowmen balance

[sado1]

The situation you'll get then is that it doesn't matter if they shoot pikemen or swordsmen, both die equally fast.

Towers work like that as well. If we really need it to balance the game, then let's assume crossbow bolts are that deadly.

[MpranavM]

yes i think you should buff the xbows attack against all the units

[The Dark Lord]

And I don't think the shield bonus should be removed either, crossbowmen just need a little boost against shielded units, lets say, 20%? That might actually make militia more important because they could absorb the strong crossbow bolts while the sword fighters keep fighting --> bowmen versus militia and tadaaa: both are used? Just my theory.

Well imo that doesn't make any sense. Why would xbows only become stronger against shielded units? The situation you'll get then is that it doesn't matter if they shoot pikemen or swordsmen, both die equally fast. Then what's the use of the shield?

I stand by what I said earlier: buff the xbows against all units.

It actually does make sense; Sado is right: is we assume that crossbow bolts are more piercing, it doesn't matter what target they shoot at, they shoot right through it.

[T*AnTi-V!RuZz]

And I don't think the shield bonus should be removed either, crossbowmen just need a little boost against shielded units, lets say, 20%? That might actually make militia more important because they could absorb the strong crossbow bolts while the sword fighters keep fighting --> bowmen versus militia and tadaaa: both are used? Just my theory.

Well imo that doesn't make any sense. Why would xbows only become stronger against shielded units? The situation you'll get then is that it doesn't matter if they shoot pikemen or swordsmen, both die equally fast. Then what's the use of the shield?

I stand by what I said earlier: buff the xbows against all units.

It actually does make sense; Sado is right: is we assume that crossbow bolts are more piercing, it doesn't matter what target they shoot at, they shoot right through it.

Which contradicts your solution of boosting vs. only shielded units by 20%...

[Lewin]

And I don't think the shield bonus should be removed either, crossbowmen just need a little boost against shielded units, lets say, 20%? That might actually make militia more important because they could absorb the strong crossbow bolts while the sword fighters keep fighting --> bowmen versus militia and tadaaa: both are used? Just my theory.

Well imo that doesn't make any sense. Why would xbows only become stronger against shielded units? The situation you'll get then is that it doesn't matter if they shoot pikemen or swordsmen, both die equally fast. Then what's the use of the shield?

I stand by what I said earlier: buff the xbows against all units.

It actually does make sense; Sado is right: is we assume that crossbow bolts are more piercing, it doesn't matter what target they shoot at, they shoot right through it.

Not really. If a bolt and an arrow are shot at an unarmoured target, both will penetrate and do a similar amount of damage. But if a bolt and an arrow are shot against a target wearing iron armour, the arrow is much more likely to bounce off, dealing no damage, where as the bolt will still penetrate dealing damage. Therefore both arrows and bolts are effective against lightly armoured targets, but bolts are much more effective than arrows against heavily armoured targets.

Krom and I discussed this earlier and we think it would be best if crossbows are more effective than bows against heavily armoured targets (iron armour). So crossbows get a bonus against iron armoured targets, and bows remain as they are now. This means if you are fighting lightly armoured targets both bowmen and crossbowmen are effective, but against heavily armoured targets crossbows have a significant advantage compared to bowmen.

[The Dark Lord]

It actually does make sense; Sado is right: is we assume that crossbow bolts are more piercing, it doesn't matter what target they shoot at, they shoot right through it.

Which contradicts your solution of boosting vs. only shielded units by 20%...

Lets 'set' the strength for crossbow bolts at 100% before the shield patch. Then the shield patch came and they became less powerful (or actually shielded units became stronger, but in this case it is practically the same), lets say their strength against shielded units was reduced to 70%. I think those bolts should be so piercing that it should be like what, 85% maybe? Because the stats of the crossbowman itself were not changed, their strength against other units is still 100%. So if you would make crossbowmen stronger against all units, it means lance carriers, pikemen etc. really have no chance and might completely disappear from the game.
Of course all these numbers are just made up but I'm trying to explain my thoughts more clearly.

I'm not sure why Lewin disagrees... I agree with what he said though.

[T*AnTi-V!RuZz]

It actually does make sense; Sado is right: is we assume that crossbow bolts are more piercing, it doesn't matter what target they shoot at, they shoot right through it.

Which contradicts your solution of boosting vs. only shielded units by 20%...

Lets 'set' the strength for crossbow bolts at 100% before the shield patch. Then the shield patch came and they became less powerful (or actually shielded units became stronger, but in this case it is practically the same), lets say their strength against shielded units was reduced to 70%. I think those bolts should be so piercing that it should be like what, 85% maybe? Because the stats of the crossbowman itself were not changed, their strength against other units is still 100%. So if you would make crossbowmen stronger against all units, it means lance carriers, pikemen etc. really have no chance and might completely disappear from the game.
Of course all these numbers are just made up but I'm trying to explain my thoughts more clearly.

I'm not sure why Lewin disagrees... I agree with what he said though.

Yeah I think meant to quote me instead.

[Romek]

Everything depends how big that bonus vs iron will be. Personally I dont think it should work like this. In this game we should have situation that every single iron unit is better vs everything then leather unit. For example swords are better then axefighters, pikes are better then lances. Xbows should work in the same way. They should be better vs every single leather unit also. The key there is to not make them too good - maybe adding to them 15-30% more accuracy is nice thing to test first ?

[EDMatt]

I think the bowmen are fine atm and that only the (impact of) xbows should be changed.

To be honest I'm wondering why they were even nerfed in the first place, but that's probably because I have a very bad memory. They were probably too strong back then, but right now they're really weak. I think xbows should be strong, I mean they fire and iron bolt at high speed. I doubt armor would even help, but of course we have to think about balance.

In short: xbows should kill more. Not just shielded units, but in general.

In "real life", bolts can pierce through armor with no problem at all, but crossbows take forever to load compared to using a bow.
Some bows can pierce armor too, but you need a lot of strength and resistance to be able to repeatedly use them...

(Of course, it depends a lot on the bow, crossbow, arrow, bolt and armor, but still what you wrote makes sense.)

in "real life" you cannot make an axe from wood only

[pawel95]

You can´t also get 200 citizens from one small school with one door when you only put Goldchests in it. You also can´t make bread our of flour only KaM isn´t a realistic game, but there should be some realistic points, so arguing with "how realistic is that" isn´t bad, like the movie from Anti is in my opinion also really nice, because it shows the firerate in reality and in KaM isn´t/wasn´t that firerrate really different.

[pawel95]

Hey, just wanted to ask, if there are some plans actualy to test in the next release or if you change sth in balance maybe later on, beacuse now you have more important stuff to implement/do.
Don´t take that as a @OMG MAKE FASTER post Just wanted to know what your plans are, because there were some discussions on TS in the evening, about the balance of xbow in kam, again

[Lewin]

Thanks for reminding me, I kind of forgot

Ok, so as a first test lets try reducing the shields bonus from 1.0 to 0.5 for crossbow bolts. I'll include that change in the next nightly build. Bad stuff that could happen and needs to be tested:
1. Bowmen become rarely used again since crossbows are better against Axefighters/swordfighters
2. Axefighters/swordfighters become rarely used because pikemen/lancers survive almost as well against crossbowmen
3. Crossbowmen are still rarely used compared to bowmen

Notice that 1 and 2 are kind of counter balancing each other (contradicting), since if everybody uses crossbows then lances/pikes become more useful (like before the shields bonus), and if everybody uses lances/pikes then bowmen become more useful (since crossbows have no advantage against non-shielded units).

I would like the army composition choice to be more than just "swords+bows or axes+crossbows". Since this change is weakening the shields bonus a bit perhaps pikes/lances will sometimes be viable as a primary melee unit when your enemy is using crossbows?


I did some calculations:

Bowmen average fire rate: every 2.4 seconds
XBows average fire rate: every 4.0 seconds

Bow damage: 60
XBow damage: 120

Iron armour defence: 3
Leather armour defence: 2
Shield bonus: 1

Bowmen DPS: 60/2.4 = 25
XBow DPS: 120/4.0 = 30

Damage per second (DPS) calculation:
DPS bow against swordfighter/knight = 60/4/2.4 = 6.25
DPS xbow against swordfighter/knight = 120/4/4.0 = 7.5
DPS xbow CHANGED against swordfighter/knight = 120/3.5/4.0 = 8.5

DPS bow against axefighter/scout = 60/3/2.4 = 8.33
DPS xbow against axefighter/scout = 120/3/4.0 = 10
DPS xbow CHANGED against axefighter/scout = 120/2.5/4.0 = 12

Note that this isn't the actual DPS since I'm ignoring the chance to hit (which is equal for bows/crossbows).

So as you can see it's quite a significant bonus against shielded units.

[pawel95]

Great! I somehow felt that you "forgot" a bit about that, but I wasn't sure if you maybe think, that I just want to annoy you with that again

With that change the nightly should become much more popular even for non-scripters, so it will make bugfindings of the nightly also


I like the calculation, you wrote here.

I have an other idea about bowmen vs xbows (bowmen shouldn't be able to kill a crossbow by one shot that often) but I won't write here anything about it right now, until your change isn't tested Maybe it's just perfect nkw xd

About your "xbow + axefighters or bowmen + swordmen":
I guess that everyone, want to see battlefields with all kinds of army on it. However it wasn't just worth zo makr that, but actually I think that we are going into right direction. Lanes are quit often used today, because of using knights quite often

An Only bigger problem is/will be the scout. He can't see further like in tpr and needs often ages to kill a few bowmen

[EDMatt]

Tested the new release regarding miniature xbow balance.
The change that was brought forward is yet too small/insignificant to be called a real change or rather a "fix".
I will go in full detail with this after I discuss about this with a few other testers to see if we have the same point of view, and perhaps write a summery of what/how we found it to be.

[thunder]

An Only bigger problem is/will be the scout. He can't see further like in tpr and needs often ages to kill a few bowmen

Trading pike to leather make possibility to train them. I calculated nearly 30 xbow plus 3 leather jacket, and the farms can work for only stables. 30scout+30xbow???:S