Archery: STR vs DEX - A Mechanical Balance Suggestion

[Nefnate]

Hello all, I cannot pretend I play a lot. I do not have a ton of context. However from my time playing, and from watching the masses give their own feedback, I think it is safe to say that in general people agree that bows are overkill at the moment.

I have seen lots of threads about attributes, bows, str vs dex, etc. I think people are digging too deep to be realistic in terms of development at this point.

Here is my simple suggestion for fixing Archery:

Introduce a Dexterity Requirement on Bows:

• The Dexterity Requirement would govern MOVEMENT SPEED while Drawing the Bow.
  • If they have lowerDex, they get a movement speed penalty that scales with how much lower their Dex is. The Bow draws much slower when mounted.
    • The penalty would be exponential, meaning the further away from the requirement, your speed is drastically lowered.
  • If the player has the Required Dex, they could move at regular speed. The bow draws at a normal speed when mounted.
  • If they have above the Required Dex, they would get reduced drag when they move and aim. The same effect while mounted.
    • Not enough to invalidate Marksmanship/Aiming Technique.

This would make it so that High Strength Bows (high damage/range) would also likely have high Dex Requirements, meaning if you want to do big damage, you're going to be moving at a walking pace, or not at all. This removes the issue with damage and mobility, giving high damage per shot players a different play style. It also attempts to balance bows on horseback to a degree.

Different Bow Styles would have Different Ratios of Str/Dex (this is not final, just a stab at some numbers):

• Long Bows
  • Could have 125% Strength requirement converted into the Dex Requirement.
    • This would mean a 100 Str Longbow would need 125 Dex to move at Full Speed, or draw normally while mounted.
• Short Bows
  • Could have 75% of their Strength requirement converted into the Dex Requirement.

Of course, such a suggestion would need to be carefully balanced and thought about, but I feel pretty solid about this as an idea. It forces players who like to stickyback / be mobile to use less powerful bows, and removes a bit of the punch from wheelchair MA due to them having to choose between draw speed and damage. This also enables squishier archer builds, because they will have the bonus of accessing higher powered bows and full mobility, due to having higher dex.

What do you think?

 

[Moored]

I'd like to see some smarter people than I pick this apart but from where I'm standing this seems brilliant.

 

[Woody]

I think you first need to identify what you're trying to solve here. Is it that high strength footies/mounted's are just as competitive with bows versus someone who wants to be a primary foot archer with high mobility?

As it stands now:

Strength is all about physical power and endurance - pulling, pushing, swinging, carrying, physique.
Dex is all about movement and finesse - running, jumping and precision.

So either way, there's no reason why being more or less dexterous should impact your ability to draw a bow as well as reduce your movement speed. Your standard Movement Speed values already addresses this and scale off dex solely, thus footies will have less movement speed while drawing anyway. We also don't want it to feel clunky, that the moment you click draw your MS drops.

Instead, you focus in on the sway mechanic that exists now, making it so less dexterous characters have a much larger penalty to the amount of bow sway while still being able to invest into controlled aiming if they want to sacrifice 100 primary points (and controlled aiming will be a Hold Shift mechanic as far as I'm aware and cost stamina to use - so doesn't remove sway entirely). This is a win win to the build argument too because footies won't want to invest too many primaries into ranged combat and controlled aiming is primary. Sway also needs to be applied to MA's too and should have another primary pool under MA for reducing sway while moving on a horse.

Finally, you still want to allow for the Juggernaut, big fuck off mounted archer or stationary longbowman fantasy to be a thing, and strength should be the route for this, sacrificing mobility for big long range snipes. As such, strength should remain the only requirement for bows types.

Keep the bows the same, improve balance through the execution/skill aspect of archery.

 

[agui]

I like the idea u place here how to deal with dexterity and str for bows.

 

[Nefnate]

I think you first need to identify what you're trying to solve here. Is it that high strength footies/mounted's are just as competitive with bows versus someone who wants to be a primary foot archer with high mobility?

As it stands now:

Strength is all about physical power and endurance - pulling, pushing, swinging, carrying, physique.
Dex is all about movement and finesse - running, jumping and precision.

So either way, there's no reason why being more or less dexterous should impact your ability to draw a bow as well as reduce your movement speed. Your standard Movement Speed values already addresses this and scale off dex solely, thus footies will have less movement speed while drawing anyway. We also don't want it to feel clunky, that the moment you click draw your MS drops.

Instead, you focus in on the sway mechanic that exists now, making it so less dexterous characters have a much larger penalty to the amount of bow sway while still being able to invest into controlled aiming if they want to sacrifice 100 primary points (and controlled aiming will be a Hold Shift mechanic as far as I'm aware and cost stamina to use - so doesn't remove sway entirely). This is a win win to the build argument too because footies won't want to invest too many primaries into ranged combat and controlled aiming is primary. Sway also needs to be applied to MA's too and should have another primary pool under MA for reducing sway while moving on a horse.

Finally, you still want to allow for the Juggernaut, big fuck off mounted archer or stationary longbowman fantasy to be a thing, and strength should be the route for this, sacrificing mobility for big long range snipes. As such, strength should remain the only requirement for bows types.

Keep the bows the same, improve balance through the execution/skill aspect of archery.

I hear some of your points, but others not so much. I too thought about just addressing the issue via the Swag / Drag mechanic, but it didn't seem satisfactory.

The relationship to me would be, Strength yes is ability to pull the damn thing back. Dexterity, agility, you know - finesse, precision, hand-eye coordination... all things considered when aiming. So the thought process is, if you are not dexterious enough, trying to move while aiming is too hard. So you slow down to make it so you can focus. I understand this could be addressed solely in the sway mechanic, but, again, i just feel that isn't enough.

As for the existence of what you call "juggarnaut" or longbowman builds, my suggestion actually reinforces them. It creates them as a definite role, even. So I don't see why str being the only requirement justifies your point here.

EDIT: As for 'clunky' feeling - that would revolve solely around implementation, not just in the idea itself. Why would you ever just suddenly jerk and slow down when clicking to begin drawing? to me that idea is so ridiculous I did not consider it. I imagine you would work your way up the scale of the slow, starting at 100% Movespeed and having it scale downward smoothly as the drawing animation completes. Of course the speed of this effect would vary, but it would not be clunky in my mind.

 

[Woody]

The reason I think it's best solved through the sway mechanic is because it then directly ties into the skill ceiling of the role, and isn't just a change to build/weapon choices. In turn rewarding those players spending full primary points into the role with a lower skill ceiling in being able to aim and move more easily.

As I say, you already have variance in movement speed provided directly by the Dex stat so why does it need to be impacted by the use of a bow. It also doesn't make sense that your legs would stop functioning as a result of pulling a bow string back - let this be a player choice when it comes to movement at the cost of drastic crosshair sway.

 

[Avenoma]

I like the idea u place here how to deal with dexterity and str for bows.

Completely agree and I wish there was time to address this, however a total rework seems too late. The compromise Im looking for; past 20kg or so of armor weight, introduce a left to right sway to aiming. This will give higher Dex characters a round about buff.

 

[Kebek]

Hello all, I cannot pretend I play a lot. I do not have a ton of context. However from my time playing, and from watching the masses give their own feedback, I think it is safe to say that in general people agree that bows are overkill at the moment.

I have seen lots of threads about attributes, bows, str vs dex, etc. I think people are digging too deep to be realistic in terms of development at this point.

Here is my simple suggestion for fixing Archery:

Introduce a Dexterity Requirement on Bows:

• The Dexterity Requirement would govern MOVEMENT SPEED while Drawing the Bow.
  • If they have lowerDex, they get a movement speed penalty that scales with how much lower their Dex is. The Bow draws much slower when mounted.
    • The penalty would be exponential, meaning the further away from the requirement, your speed is drastically lowered.
  • If the player has the Required Dex, they could move at regular speed. The bow draws at a normal speed when mounted.
  • If they have above the Required Dex, they would get reduced drag when they move and aim. The same effect while mounted.
    • Not enough to invalidate Marksmanship/Aiming Technique.

This would make it so that High Strength Bows (high damage/range) would also likely have high Dex Requirements, meaning if you want to do big damage, you're going to be moving at a walking pace, or not at all. This removes the issue with damage and mobility, giving high damage per shot players a different play style. It also attempts to balance bows on horseback to a degree.

Different Bow Styles would have Different Ratios of Str/Dex (this is not final, just a stab at some numbers):

• Long Bows
  • Could have 125% Strength requirement converted into the Dex Requirement.
    • This would mean a 100 Str Longbow would need 125 Dex to move at Full Speed, or draw normally while mounted.
• Short Bows
  • Could have 75% of their Strength requirement converted into the Dex Requirement.

Of course, such a suggestion would need to be carefully balanced and thought about, but I feel pretty solid about this as an idea. It forces players who like to stickyback / be mobile to use less powerful bows, and removes a bit of the punch from wheelchair MA due to them having to choose between draw speed and damage. This also enables squishier archer builds, because they will have the bonus of accessing higher powered bows and full mobility, due to having higher dex.

What do you think?

No thanks. Your ability to manipulate a bow easily/accurately doesn't come from agility/dexterity but strength.

 

[KermyWormy]

Higher dex could also let you nock and fire arrows faster which would of course increase the dps. On the surface I like this idea, but at the same time I see it as problematic in some ways because you'd be looking to add a big enough difference starting around 90 dex and increasing meaningfully from there to where you can feel the difference when doing archery on a veela etc.

But then you have another problem where khurite ought to be some of the best archers and yet they top out like 108 dex or so, so only relying on a buff in dex to archery leaves them out of the top spot which feels weird, but they'd still be good at it.

Balance going forward I believe, as I've noted before, is probably going to need to rely on clade gifts primarily as stats are too broad in some cases and balance is good on them for the most part now. What we need is bloodline specific sections of the clade trees so they can target something like khurite separate from other humans, or maybe blainn, or sheevra etc, allowing them to fine tune balance outside of raw stats. It would help distinguish the bloodlines even more and allow them to even bring up some of the other poorly balanced bloodlines such as sarduccan and sidioan without messing about with the others that are in a pretty good spot.

 

[Avenoma]

Your ability to manipulate a bow easily/accurately doesn't come from agility/dexterity but strength.

Something has to represent tendon strength besides the STR stat. STRENTH is more representative of muscle, where DEXERITY is more representative of Tendon STRENGTH because its takes exercises that promote Agility to work Tendons.
Sorry, theres a reason why EVERY other MMO used Dex/Coordination for BOWS and not STR. Its cute and adds to the game, what SV is doing, but I think it needs to be looked into. Huge muscle DOES detract from aiming a bow and Dexterous actions work Tendons. You need excelling Tendons to be good with bows. SV is relying on the fact that a certain DRAW weight needs to be achieved to penetrate armor. They will be tweaking those numbers over the years im sure.

The only two things you need strength for with bows, is draw weight then how long you can hold after drawing. DEXERITY is more important than STRENGTH when factoring in muscle memory, something thats needed for SHARP EYED PENETRATING Shots.
IMO DEX/INT should contribute to BOW DAM but im sure im not getting that one.

If SV continues as is, the easy answer is; right/left sway for heavier armor wearers and less penalties for wearing light/no armor. In a round about way we get a buff for Dex Stat Primary Characters if we can do things like jump off a horse.

 

[Tzone]

The worst thing you could do to archery is add more variables to the aim. You might think its a buff to raise/lower the sway or make you aim better with higher dex but this will mess with the muscle memory of player.

Its already a slight issue when you use different poundage bows that they all shoot differently with different arcs. Not saying we should change that but we shouldnt introduce more variables to make training muscle memory take so much more longer then it needed to.

I would like dex to contribute to archery but most classes will have near 100 dex except for alvarian. So what would be the difference of having a high dex alv and a high dex human. Or even between foot fighters who have near capped dex anyway.

Dex is realistically your coordination specifically with the hands. STR makes complete sense for pulling a bow. Dex would make sense for shooting it but not pulling it but really how would it be balanced.

Making dex affect bows should really only be in terms of mounted archers but I think dex should affect all mounted players who try to go wheel chair builds.



Just make mounted players needs some dex. Even if you make dex matter for archers it wont be fair for other races with low dex who foot fighters already have near max dex for their races. Please do not have dex affect your aiming or it will really hurt archery over all for everyone reguardless of Dex. I play a high dex build so it would be a buff to me but still would be bad over all for learning archery and getting good at it when the rules of how you aim change based off dex. Also the sway is already cancer and sway when you move needs changes for sure.



For people talking about armor and archer IDK why you are trying to nerf one of the least viable playstyles right now. If you die to a foot archer its not because he outplayed you, its because you let him kill you. Foot archer usually just ends up stalemating mages and fighters can just use some cover and bandage to reset the fight.

Yes is is also realistic for foot archers to have heavy armor. Most players arent even in heavy armor they are in some sort of bone armor as well.
Scottish guard was a plate armored force with bows, Samurai were very armored while starting off as foot and mounted archers before becoming more sword oriented. Samurai still would be bow oriented a lot in later ages as well. Plenty of evidence of full plate archers existing.

Most archers were poorly paid so thats why its the stereo type of not having archers wear armor. The Duke of Burgandy's (who was very rich) would have his archers wear bragadines with plate limps as well as great swords and a dagger for their weapons.



The only real prevention of shooting a bow with armor would be the helmet which most archers would have kettle helmets if they could even afford armor.

In MO2 your stamina is greatly affected by archery so you cant even were heavy armor and be effective. You settle for armor below the weight where it affects your stamina. So yeah armor already affects archery in terms of stamina recovery which is highly important for when you need to reposition or kite.


I dont think dex affecting archery is the answer since most players have near max dex already.

But changes I can say right now are needed are:

Slight arrow increase, because everyone runs and moves faste. Combined with high and low pings people already have enought say in wether they get hit by arrows or not based of their own actions

Something to be done about how penalizing it is to prevent players from moving while pulling a bow. Stafing is used alot to aim in games when you might skip over a pixel. MO2 needs higher sensitivity to do melee so that means you have to try to aim with higher sens which is less precise and not recommended if you want to me good at FPS games.

How long it takes to pull back a bow. A lot of stamina issue and issue with not being able to have time to aim could be solved if the general rate of fire stayed the same but the draw bat length was shortened. IRL its not gonna take you 3 seconds to pull back a traditional bow. No way you are even holding back a traditional bow for longer the 3 seconds. You dont even have time much time to think about aiming. Its all done with a single quick draw of the bow.

Make archery a viable class thats worth putting points into the skills. Right now no reason to put points into anything pass aiming tech. Unless you are MA then you might takes marksmenship but you dont need aiming tech. MA might use MS because they already have to use broad heads which is the only arrow affected by MS and they have no additional sway while moving.

 

[Kebek]

Sorry, theres a reason why EVERY other MMO used Dex/Coordination for BOWS and not STR.

Yeah, ignorance of actual archery. Same reason they give bows to "weak but agile characters" in Hollywood movies.


What is all this waffle about "tendons = dex" based on besides your subjective theory?

Drawing a bow is like weight lifting. You can draw heavier bows by using progressive overload and doing the actual drawing will engage all the muscles you need to get stronger at the movement, strengthening your nervous system. It has no more to do with dexterity than being able to bench more over months of training.

 

[Avenoma]

lol, just lol. ive been pulling bows since I was 5. I developed some freakishly strong tendons. by the time yur an adult, you are working more than tendons and it just seems like muscle. sorry, yur just off base here, but the dex thing I get. Something has to represent coordination along with dex and str.

 

[Kebek]

lol, just lol. ive been pulling bows since I was 5. I developed some freakishly strong tendons. by the time yur an adult, you are working more than tendons and it just seems like muscle. sorry, yur just off base here, but the dex thing I get. Something has to represent coordination along with dex and str.

If you're a fellow archer, you should really know better.

The way to strengthen tendons is to do resistance training => STR.
Dexterity has nothing to do with tendons. Dexterity is wrongfully linked to archery in many media.

To be accurate with a bow it isn't just about form or experience, you also have to be STRONG enough to manipulate the bow. If you're too weak, your aim is unstable, it will mess with your form and your experience won't matter if you can't manipulate the bow the way you want to.

 

[Woody]

If you're a fellow archer, you should really know better.

The way to strengthen tendons is to do resistance training => STR.
Dexterity has nothing to do with tendons. Dexterity is wrongfully linked to archery in many media.

To be accurate with a bow it isn't just about form or experience, you also have to be STRONG enough to manipulate the bow. If you're too weak, your aim is unstable, it will mess with your form and your experience won't matter if you can't manipulate the bow the way you want to.

This is why imo, dex should only impact aim while moving, that's it. You're attempting to combine a bow shot with the required strength to draw and hold the bow, while moving with enough finesse to still be accurate. Lower the penalty to sway either with a dex buffed primary skill that can be trained or simply from dex directly.

 

[Kebek]

This is why imo, dex should only impact aim while moving, that's it. You're attempting to combine a bow shot with the required strength to draw and hold the bow, while moving with enough finesse to still be accurate. Lower the penalty to sway either with a dex buffed primary skill that can be trained or simply from dex directly.

If it does so for archery, it should also for melee weapons.

All these requirements will just end up having fewer viable builds and it will become another Thursar Online like MO1 was. It's a great thing that in MO2 a lot more builds/races are viable. Leave it to the community to ruin it.

 

[Woody]

If it does so for archery, it should also for melee weapons.

All these requirements will just end up having fewer viable builds and it will become another Thursar Online like MO1 was. It's a great thing that in MO2 a lot more builds/races are viable. Leave it to the community to ruin it.

You already do through various melee action skills that benefit from STR and DEX. Perhaps the actual problem that needs to be addressed is that there's not enough depth or reason to invest into archery in it's current state when you are better off going a foot fighter with some archery. Thus I think what players are really asking for is the ability to better specialise into the typical archer theme and therefore feel the benefit for doing so.

 

[Kebek]

You already do through various melee action skills that benefit from STR and DEX.

Which melee action skills besides blocking? What do you mean by "action skill"?
Cause if you're talking about stuff like combat maneuvering or armor training, archers use those too.

Not that it really matters cause the comparison doesn't fly. If you apply this logic to melee fighting, then weapons would do less damage if you swing while moving.

 

[Woody]

Which melee action skills besides blocking? What do you mean by "action skill"?
Cause if you're talking about stuff like combat maneuvering or armor training, archers use those too.

Yes I was referring to how that both STR and DEX attributes already benefit melee action skills and yes, of course they have cross over between playstyles/builds.

If you apply this logic to melee fighting, then weapons would do less damage if you swing while moving.

No not at all, that's not remotely what I'm implying. I'm suggesting focusing on your ability to actually hit the shot, not the damage output as a result of your bow and strength. Archery has a ranged/shooter/aim and click element to it and this is what seems most logical to double down on when addressing how Dex can benefit ranged gameplay. I'm not suggesting adjusting ranged damage potential on your Dex, but instead to reduce/dampen the amount of crosshair sway directly off Dex while moving and drawing a bow. Or at the very least a Primary Action Skill that reduces the amount of sway and benefits directly from Dex as a base. Remember, sway is a mechanic that we already have in game, and it only triggers when moving.

And the good thing about this? It's tied to a person's actual skill with aiming a crosshair on their screen and hitting a target. If someone is simply good at aiming with their crosshair WITH SWAY, then they don't need as much Dex. This is actually the beauty of the cross over of builds and the actual person's skill - the same goes for melee. You can have the best build in the game but still be shit mechanically at melee. The build HELPS, but it's not the be all end all. So for those wanting the pure ranger fantasy and can't aim for shit with heavy sway, then investing in Dex would seem like a good idea without making them absolutely busted with max damage output bows.

Realism aside (because realism isn't necessarily good at justifying game mechanics), there is an additional attribute level argument that can be made here for giving a direct Ranged gameplay interaction to Dex, without harming the Strength aspect of Archery.

If we look at it with the 3 core archetypes. Melee, Ranged, Magic.

Melee has the closest direct benefit with Strength as it provides the highest contribution to Damage Bonus - which is only for melee attacks. Mages gain direct spell power across all their spells, from higher Intelligence. Archery right now, doesn't have any attribute interaction outside of strength determining which bows to use - which is fine as one aspect to it and I agree with you on your points earlier about strength and archery. However, to satisfy the archetype/fantasy of the ranged character with the realism argument aside for the sake of gameplay; it is justified to have some form of benefit scaled directly off another attribute. Thus, I feel like the sway mechanic, which directly impacts the skill cap of the aim and shoot mechanic, is a perfect fit, without gimping those wanting to be a big fuck off Thursar firing max damage bows. Just that if you do go the max Strength route, you effectively become a stationary sniper but the trade off, hey, you can probably be a fairly effective footie at the same time.

 

[Kebek]

Yes I was referring to how that both STR and DEX attributes already benefit melee action skills and yes, of course they have cross over between playstyles/builds.



No not at all, that's not remotely what I'm implying.

Yeah and that's the issue. If you apply what OP suggested to melee weapons, they do less damage when moving while you swing.

I get the idea of making DEX the "archer archetype attribute" for game's sake but I like the fact MO goes against the Hollywood/fantasy trope that bows are for low STR, high DEX people that are flexible and agile so they can "shoot better".

I absolutely do not see the reason for any of this in terms of balance, really. I'm already a Veela Veela archer so I have considerable STR and high DEX. It's not like I'm a wheelchair mounted archer with 80 DEX and that that is the reason why I oppose this. This wouldn't harm my character really. I just see no need to "balance" this. I picked the higher DEX cause I like a bit more foot speed when I'm not on a mount. I didn't need "less sway" to make that choice.

And what I said about adding requirements for attributes still stands. 2 attributes are now in play so it is limited to races that can have both the STR and DEX you need for the "meta". If the sway is meaningful enough to force people to consider DEX then it will also be meaningful enough to kill off Thursar and Dwarf mounted archers. So everyone will be Alvarin then and we return to MO1 where everyone was 1 of 2 races.

While right now all you need to look at is STR. You can be an archer with any race as long as it has the STR you need.