Archery Balance

[Rankor]

As an archery focused player, I find it troublesome that another player that has near zero skill, but high strength, can pick up a long bow and make a fully skilled (all primarys and secondaries maxed) almost irrelevant. After dismounting, my char is no where near as effective as a foot fighter as foot fighters are as an archer.

As I recall, in MO1 there was much faster stamina drain and a horrible wobble to overcome if you were unskilled.

What are your thought?

 

[Foundry]

I dont even think devs want archer's to be a viable playstyle in PVP. The focus is purely showcasing the melee combat. Everything else is just fluff to add a false sense of depth to the playstyles.

I would love for archery to be viable, would make combat way more interesting for those who do not wish to engage in the spin fiesta. I don't think SV will chnage Archery to be viable however, as it has been this way for 10+ years of M0's existance. Unfortunately.

 

[Raknor]

It is a tougher question that it sounds. I think it is balanced around the fact that without it being the way it is then a footie doesn't have a chance against a mounted archer (and we all know how loud the foot only people can be), it is the long bow and the horse fragility that give him a chance. I do agree that outside archery itself and mounted archery skills the other primaries you can put into archery at the moment are just fluff and not really worth the investment outside niche cases (which are PvE related)

 

[Woody]

You don't have to change much in terms of archery to allow for footfighters to still have a ranged weapon choice while giving those wanting to play a more mobile pure archer a place in the community. It's fairly obvious, making the archer playstyle less about big longbow, sniper shots, and more about mobility while aiming, focusing on weapon sway and weakspots as a core pillar of the build. It's almost there in game right now.

• Double the current amount of weapon sway while aiming, both when stationary and moving.
• Implement controlled aiming, not as a hold breath mechanic but as a flat aim sway reduction from 0-100%.
• Allow weakspots to occur across all body parts. This seems fair even now as bow weakspot damage is already set to 70% damage on weakspot hit.
• Keep marksmanship the same increasing the weakspot chance on headshot.

Further to this, weakspot capable bows are already limited by their damage output given you can't weakspot with longbows. They also require bodkins for higher base proc (or at least should) or broadheads for lower proc and higher dmg. Then once fletching is introduced some of the arrow heads/types can be fleshed out further.

Now if MA becomes a problem because of these changes, then it needs to have it's own balancing done, because foot archers shouldn't suffer because of it. Though I'd argue applying the same rules to Mounted Archery around increased weapon sway and controlled aiming would go a long way at reigning it in appropriately.

So it doesn't seem like much needs to change IMO in order to enable archery as a core playstyle. There's definitely a community of players that want it, that's for sure.

 

[alabugin]

Mounted Footfighters should have a way to fight back against mounted archers, but I believe the accuracy of longbows needs to be reigned in a bit for those with only 100 primary points into the skill.

Pure archery builds that could permanently kite footfighters could be an extremely toxic playstyle, and MO devs needs to watch that carefully.

 

[Exiledkhallisi]

Simple solution is to add weapon sway that is reduced by Dexterity and Marksmanship.

This allows everyone to be able to use but only dedicated MAs to be specialized and focused as a archery damage dealer.

 

[Wyndorn]

I believe Henrik mentioned on a stream a few weeks ago, that they thought archery needed more skill requirements. As in, low-skilled archers are too good.

 

[Kaemik]

I did a full write-up on this subject yesterday. While I'm sure my ideas on thrown weapons are just wishful thinking there are a few parts of the idea worth pointing out.

The skill that reduces stam cost for holding breath is deleted. Breathing seems a waste of time mechanic to implement, if you're holding shots after they hit full charge your punishment is being a bad archer with crap DPS. No need for an extra mechanic to dissuade people from being bad or a skill that makes being bad drain less stam.

Likewise if you are aiming for the head as an archer, you either have an aimbot, are Legolas, or are bad. I actually suggest upgrading marksmanship to give various effects depending on what part of the body is hit. The normal people aiming center mass and not always hitting center mass will get some cool rando effects. Legolas can pick and choose which body part to shoot to give various debuffs to the enemy, and is actually buffed by this change anyway. The skill is now universally useful no matter where you aim as long as you hit your target.

Finally I suggest nerfing base damage with only archery trained but adding shortbow, longbow, and assym as new skills that give you 125% of current damage in the bow type trained.

So overall, archery gives hella buffed if you go 400 points deep. Nerfed hella hard for a 100 point investment, and made slightly better for a 200 point investment. Also MM/FF builds that swap between longbows and assym get the nerfbat right to their primary pool.

 

[Wyndorn]

Finally I suggest nerfing base damage with only archery trained but adding shortbow, longbow, and assym as new skills that give you 125% of current damage in the bow type trained.

I could take or leave most of the stuff in your post (intuition tells me that there may be better solutions), but I think nerfing damage and adding bow skills alone will go a long way to helping archery get to where it should be.

Also, would like some higher damage/str shortbows

 

[Kaemik]

Also, would like some higher damage/str shortbows

On one hand I kind of like shotbows where they are because it means some lower strength builds can run a bow much more easily. On the other hand the main limitation of a shortbow is their range. Would be nice to have some versions that smack REALLY hard at the shorter ranges they operate at.

 

[Roan]

On the other hand the main limitation of a shortbow is their range. Would be nice to have some versions that smack REALLY hard at the shorter ranges they operate at.

There should be a way to craft all types of bows for pretty much all strength ranges and give each type something unique (W pretty much have that already... Shortbows can weakspot, Longbows add blunt but can only be used on foot, Asym packs more punch than short but draws slower. Something like that.)

I mean, those asiatic "warbows" would be classified as shorts in MO and they could be made in really high poundages, easily matching english longbows.
No sense to have shortbows only for low str.
On the other hand, bow requirement should not be purely str IMO. Make it 50/50 Str and dex or w/e.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Archery is the ranged backup for melee.

Melee rules all.

The end.

 

[Exiledkhallisi]

Simple fix...

change marksmanship...add aim wobble to the game that is only reduced with Marksman and Dexterity.

This is a buff and a nerf. If you want to be full MA...you have to dedicate. If you want to be FF and MA, you have to deal with some aiming problems.

 

[Foundry]

Simple fix...

change marksmanship...add aim wobble to the game that is only reduced with Marksman and Dexterity.

This is a buff and a nerf. If you want to be full MA...you have to dedicate. If you want to be FF and MA, you have to deal with some aiming problems.

All that does is nerf archery and buff footies ..like what are talking about XD

 

[Exiledkhallisi]

All that does is nerf archery and buff footies ..like what are talking about XD

How so?

It prevents full FF also being MA's. Currently every footie is also good with a biw..if youre a 123str oghmir, you are literally the meta FF build and capable of MA using the best bows in the game.

This idea opens the gateway for dex builds to be superior with bows. Requiring action point investment to be reliable is a direct nerf to footies who would have to drop defensive skills to be good with bows.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Without a root or stagger or knockdown effect that immobilizes the target you'll never make bowmen competitive against melee. Frankly i am against adding that stuff ( more than just when falling from horses). I dont like immobilizing effects.


Arrows are blockable with a weapon, blockable with a shield (even on your back), and armor negates much of the damage.steel armor almost makes arrows useless.

If you make arrows that pierce heavy metal armor then nobody will bother spend huge money on metal armor, which in turn makes half the economy useless.
Without it, bows become almost useless (vs melee) when metal gear will become more commonplace. And it will.

 

[Foundry]

Welp time to lock the thread its a wrap. Henrik just stated on stream archery needs no improvements its perfectly fine and very powerful. This game is going in the same direction as M01, again a delusional vision coming from a salesman. This conversation is pointless.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Welp time to lock the thread its a wrap. Henrik just stated on stream archery needs no improvements its perfectly fine and very powerful. This game is going in the same direction as M01, again a delusional vision coming from a salesman. This conversation is pointless.

What did you expect? Same company. Same person in charge. Same old Henrik steering the ship.

 

[Hodo]

Hell even an unskilled MA can do decent damage with a bow from mount. SV nerfs the hell out of mounted magic without the skill, same for MC, but if you happened to have 120 strength and use a stupid assym bow you can hit horses for 50+ without any skill.

 

[Wyndorn]

Hell even an unskilled MA can do decent damage with a bow from mount. SV nerfs the hell out of mounted magic without the skill, same for MC, but if you happened to have 120 strength and use a stupid assym bow you can hit horses for 50+ without any skill.

Henrik is on record saying MA needs a nerf, specifically wobble needs added, and he's mentioned before that he thinks good archery should take more skillpoints