Horse Archer Meta

nazgo

Member
May 29, 2020
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33
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MAs cant kill people who 1. have proper equipment, and 2. defend themselves. Pick a proper longbow and kill their horse, while they hit your steel armor for very minimal dmg.

Only way to prevent everyone running MAs, or MMs, or MCs, is to give foot more tools against mounteds and rework the riding skillstree. Right now the map is so massive, that you simply need to have CC + riding skills, and to be honest, you also need controlled riding so you get access swift riding as the map is just way too big to travel without it. Now, you already have a cc + cr, so why would you not take MM/MA/MC as its only <100 extra points for easy gameplay? Easy no risk pvp, easy no risk pve (excluding dungeons). Breeding will only make this more broken, as we get access to even better mounts.

Also, they could add like a rock or two to the steppe, so you had a place to run around against mounteds 🤷‍♂️ But really, people who cry about bows, be it foot archers or mounted archers, only need to wait for like few weeks, as soon as people start running in proper armors, the current bows are junk.
 

Cyrotek

Member
Feb 1, 2022
77
48
18
The Horse Archers I encountered so far weren't much trouble. A few arrows and the horses were gone while they tried to run away on foot. Tho, I suspect they were simply bad. I also tend to stay close to forests or at least some kinds of cover.
 

Emdash

Well-known member
Sep 22, 2021
3,046
967
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Disagree at needing controlled. Beats walkin is a good mantra. But if you're gonna do anything other than abandon your horse when shit gets real, then yea... if you wanna put any type of armor on it or w/e. And MA is 200 pts ;) MC is the only skill that's actually 100 pts above, but I think they tried to balance that w/ lances.

Mounted def needs work, as said, but let's make it good and balanced. Mounted skill play is highly underrated because it's so versatile esp in a footie world. But again-as-said a good amount of areas that foot groups could farm here for loot that isn't stax (like books, gold, gems etc) that weren't too far away from any town would be a good compromise.

It's not that hard to make everyone happy, especially with how empty the game is. I mean, you can't make EVERYONE happy, but you can give people the benefit. The only thing is that a MA is always gonna be the best solo farm esp if you're bringing back stacks to a table. The only better solo farm would be ganking people w/ good gear on on foot, but that doesn't seem like it happens that often in the grander scheme. Let MAs do their work. They are hunters, basically.

Def can't wait til we can MC them into the ground tho haha. Cuz the good thing about MC is you can farm on foot, stack up, and still defend yourself while you ride back. I wouldn't have gotten a 2nd acct if I didn't think MC would eventually become a thing again.
 

GMACK

New member
Apr 8, 2021
9
4
3
Have you tried killing a good MM on an MA? They can kite you across the map like its nothing.
yea totally right because the mm has to afk ride straight to cast while the ma can do circles and rip your horse to shreds during your ridiculously long cast times. you're clueless kuthara. stay in meduli with your 200 man zerg guild that hides on alt servers to kill bosses because your scared of actual conflict even while outnumbering everyone in the game roaming with 30 man groups. you're so bad at the game. MA is obviously the superior dismounter by miles. MC is complete trash compared to mo1 and so is mounted mage. disagree? advert your blind eyes to the 90% population playing mounted archers in the game while having zero mounted combats and like 5% mounted mages. MC needs to be able to dismount with any heavy weapon. mounted mages need a dismount spell. if those things don't happen 90% players playing MA's will not change.
 

Kuthara

Well-known member
Jan 4, 2021
138
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63
yea totally right because the mm has to afk ride straight to cast while the ma can do circles and rip your horse to shreds during your ridiculously long cast times. you're clueless kuthara. stay in meduli with your 200 man zerg guild that hides on alt servers to kill bosses because your scared of actual conflict even while outnumbering everyone in the game roaming with 30 man groups. you're so bad at the game. MA is obviously the superior dismounter by miles. MC is complete trash compared to mo1 and so is mounted mage. disagree? advert your blind eyes to the 90% population playing mounted archers in the game while having zero mounted combats and like 5% mounted mages. MC needs to be able to dismount with any heavy weapon. mounted mages need a dismount spell. if those things don't happen 90% players playing MA's will not change.

Sorry mate, you just come across as an angry person who does not know how to play the classes correctly.
 

Sgr

Member
Feb 2, 2022
92
27
18
FIX AND BUFF LANCES. ADD 4TH GEAR TO MOUNTED CHARGE AND REMOVE IT'S ABILITY IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE SKILL.

oops caps
Perdona, senor

Have you ever play with lance here in mo? And have you seen how It was last time?

Do you understand that with 0 Int horse it won’t work?

Thank you
 

Emdash

Well-known member
Sep 22, 2021
3,046
967
113
fuck lances, they should be something, but they need to make swing weps the meta again, it's so much of a different game then.
 

Veeshan

Active member
Jan 29, 2022
155
74
28
I just stand behind the horse and walk around in there blind spot shooting them in the head if they run to get distance I stand behind a tree and bandage if they come back toget sight I do it again soooo. The plains is a bit tougher due to no los but usually pretty fine as long as U pay attention to stamina.
 

Virin

Member
Nov 20, 2020
58
32
18
fuck lances, they should be something, but they need to make swing weps the meta again, it's so much of a different game then.
Just fix blunt lances. That's all I ask for. Also add dismounts.
 

Kaemik

Well-known member
Nov 28, 2020
1,755
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That said they could give plate armors just a flat piercing buff, but that impacts melee balance in unnecessary ways.

That actually is one of the things I've thought a lot about in how they could balance the games to make certain weapon types way better. Shields are currently are a freebie to everyone, no skill is needed except blocking to make full use of them. But every shield combo except shield/spear is garbage for an actual fighter build (Shield/dagger has merits for dagger mages).

There are a lot of changes I would make to rebalance melee, but one of them was that anyone with a shield actually out should get a portion of it's protection passively applied to all parts of their body. And piercing protection should get applied at a higher rate than other protection types. This makes shield users way more powerful vs. archers.

This comes at the cost of shields having their own primary skill with this bonus denied to them and also shields being counted toward armor weight if you don't train it. Training this skill grants the bonus and removes the penalty.

"But what about daggers, spears, and polearms."

Well, I actually thought about all those too. Spears are already so damn powerful that I think they would hold up just fine even though they would be classified as 2 handers for the fact I'd be changing 2 handed weapons to a primary skill under melee that you need to train in order to use the 2 handed variants of any weapons you're trained in.

Polearms have the same thing going on making them a 300 point investment. But they get the ability to deal bonus damage against mounted opponents and you can brace them a lot like couching a lance, to do a thrust attack that has a 100% chance of dismounting mounted enemies that impale themselves on it. Polearms are fine given the buffs to mounted melee my system would give. Their niche is to not get run over by heavy cav builds.

And dagger. Dagger gets other nerfs. It gets it's parry window reduced. Its nerfed so it absolutely cannot full-block damage even with 100 blocking. And it gets massively buffed by being made a secondary instead of a primary, as the more offensive option of the two melee secondaries everyone gets for free. The other being quarterstaves which get good reach and great parrying but being barely better than an unarmed strike in terms of damage. (Not only is this incredibly setting realistic daggers/knives and walking sticks being the most common self-defense weapon of a medieval peasant, but it also just really works better in a one account only game IMO. Makes full-mages a lot more solo viable without majorly buffing them in PvP. Infact free shield switched to free quarterstaff is kind of a nerf in PvP.)

So this sets shield users up to counter archers, pikeman, and shrug off dagger users pretty well. They make much less significant gains in viability vs. 2h wielders and the eventual inclusion of thrown weapons and dual-wielding. This is by design.
 
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Zandragal

Member
Jan 24, 2022
33
36
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That actually is one of the things I've thought a lot about in how they could balance the games to make certain weapon types way better. Shields are currently are a freebie to everyone, no skill is needed except blocking to make full use of them. But every shield combo except shield/spear is garbage for an actual fighter build (Shield/dagger has merits for dagger mages).

There are a lot of changes I would make to rebalance melee, but one of them was that anyone with a shield actually out should get a portion of it's protection passively applied to all parts of their body. And piercing protection should get applied at a higher rate than other protection types. This makes shield users way more powerful vs. archers.

This comes at the cost of shields having their own primary skill with this bonus denied to them and also shields being counted toward armor weight if you don't train it. Training this skill grants the bonus and removes the penalty.

"But what about daggers, spears, and polearms."

Well, I actually thought about all those too. Spears are already so damn powerful that I think they would hold up just fine even though they would be classified as 2 handers for the fact I'd be changing 2 handed weapons to a primary skill under melee that you need to train in order to use the 2 handed variants of any weapons you're trained in.

Polearms have the same thing going on making them a 300 point investment. But they get the ability to deal bonus damage against mounted opponents and you can brace them a lot like couching a lance, to do a thrust attack that has a 100% chance of dismounting mounted enemies that impale themselves on it. Polearms are fine given the buffs to mounted melee my system would give. Their niche is to not get run over by heavy cav builds.

And dagger. Dagger gets other nerfs. It gets it's parry window reduced. Its nerfed so it absolutely cannot full-block damage even with 100 blocking. And it gets massively buffed by being made a secondary instead of a primary, as the more offensive option of the two melee secondaries everyone gets for free. The other being quarterstaves which get good reach and great parrying but being barely better than an unarmed strike in terms of damage. (Not only is this incredibly setting realistic daggers/knives and walking sticks being the most common self-defense weapon of a medieval peasant, but it also just really works better in a one account only game IMO. Makes full-mages a lot more solo viable without majorly buffing them in PvP. Infact free shield switched to free quarterstaff is kind of a nerf in PvP.)

So this sets shield users up to counter archers, pikeman, and shrug off dagger users pretty well. They make much less significant gains in viability vs. 2h wielders and the eventual inclusion of thrown weapons and dual-wielding. This is by design.

Pretty sure Henrik mentioned something about tower shields and associated skills today. And a "nerf?" to MA, giving them more wobble unless they are "very invested" in MA.

We shall see what effects this actually has, but at least it's on their radar.
 

Kaemik

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Nov 28, 2020
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Wobble is one way to do it. Not sure it's the best way. My route would have been to delete the skill about breathing technique and replace it with three skills:

Shortbow, Asymmetrical, and Longbow.

Nerf regular archery damage but make it so that if you have specialization skill in the bow you're using damage actually goes up a bit. This serves two purposes. It nerfs 100 point builds while rewarding deeper investment, and it also nerfs the ability for a dismounted MA to just switch to a longbow. You want a mounted bow and a longbow? That'll cost you an extra 100 points. Of course, most MAs won't do that, but it leaves a pure foot fighter who only trained longbow at an advantage once the MA is dismounted. That's the intent.

Then make marksmanship a flat weak spot bonus to all areas of the body. Who goes for headshots on a weapon with an arc, travel time, and wobble? If you aren't Legolas or an aim-botter you should be aiming center mass in MO2, and marksmanship needs to reflect that, or else it will remain a useless skill.
 
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Tashka

Well-known member
Dec 4, 2021
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That actually is one of the things I've thought a lot about in how they could balance the games to make certain weapon types way better. Shields are currently are a freebie to everyone, no skill is needed except blocking to make full use of them. But every shield combo except shield/spear is garbage for an actual fighter build (Shield/dagger has merits for dagger mages).

There are a lot of changes I would make to rebalance melee, but one of them was that anyone with a shield actually out should get a portion of it's protection passively applied to all parts of their body. And piercing protection should get applied at a higher rate than other protection types. This makes shield users way more powerful vs. archers.

This comes at the cost of shields having their own primary skill with this bonus denied to them and also shields being counted toward armor weight if you don't train it. Training this skill grants the bonus and removes the penalty.

"But what about daggers, spears, and polearms."

Well, I actually thought about all those too. Spears are already so damn powerful that I think they would hold up just fine even though they would be classified as 2 handers for the fact I'd be changing 2 handed weapons to a primary skill under melee that you need to train in order to use the 2 handed variants of any weapons you're trained in.

Polearms have the same thing going on making them a 300 point investment. But they get the ability to deal bonus damage against mounted opponents and you can brace them a lot like couching a lance, to do a thrust attack that has a 100% chance of dismounting mounted enemies that impale themselves on it. Polearms are fine given the buffs to mounted melee my system would give. Their niche is to not get run over by heavy cav builds.

And dagger. Dagger gets other nerfs. It gets it's parry window reduced. Its nerfed so it absolutely cannot full-block damage even with 100 blocking. And it gets massively buffed by being made a secondary instead of a primary, as the more offensive option of the two melee secondaries everyone gets for free. The other being quarterstaves which get good reach and great parrying but being barely better than an unarmed strike in terms of damage. (Not only is this incredibly setting realistic daggers/knives and walking sticks being the most common self-defense weapon of a medieval peasant, but it also just really works better in a one account only game IMO. Makes full-mages a lot more solo viable without majorly buffing them in PvP. Infact free shield switched to free quarterstaff is kind of a nerf in PvP.)

So this sets shield users up to counter archers, pikeman, and shrug off dagger users pretty well. They make much less significant gains in viability vs. 2h wielders and the eventual inclusion of thrown weapons and dual-wielding. This is by design.
Dunno why would you want to ruin so many playstyles over a non-issue of mounted archers.
 

Zandragal

Member
Jan 24, 2022
33
36
18
MAs cant kill people who 1. have proper equipment, and 2. defend themselves. Pick a proper longbow and kill their horse, while they hit your steel armor for very minimal dmg.

Only way to prevent everyone running MAs, or MMs, or MCs, is to give foot more tools against mounteds and rework the riding skillstree. Right now the map is so massive, that you simply need to have CC + riding skills, and to be honest, you also need controlled riding so you get access swift riding as the map is just way too big to travel without it. Now, you already have a cc + cr, so why would you not take MM/MA/MC as its only <100 extra points for easy gameplay? Easy no risk pvp, easy no risk pve (excluding dungeons). Breeding will only make this more broken, as we get access to even better mounts.

Also, they could add like a rock or two to the steppe, so you had a place to run around against mounteds 🤷‍♂️ But really, people who cry about bows, be it foot archers or mounted archers, only need to wait for like few weeks, as soon as people start running in proper armors, the current bows are junk.

Heh I guess part of it for me is the same schtick actual knights had with the advent of the longbow / crossbows. It's much cheaper and easier to obtain a quality bow than it is to obtain a quality set of armor capable of mitigating the bow's damage. I suppose that's alright given its realism.

I'll have to see how Steel and above w/ Merc chestplate does against MAs. I've got decent Longbow skills to dismount them, but expect I would still lose to kiting and arrows unless the terrain was thick enough to provide ample options for coverage and closing distance to melee.
 

Kaemik

Well-known member
Nov 28, 2020
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Dunno why would you want to ruin so many playstyles over a non-issue of mounted archers.

The outlined suggestion is actually a buff to anyone who full specs archery while they have a bow out. It only nerfs builds that invest 100 points into archery and stop there. Because that frankly needs a nerf. Full melee builds in heavy armor with a 100 point archery splash shouldn't be anywhere near as good as someone with a 400 point investment. Currently, they are. They do the same damage as a 400 point archer and only 1 of the other 3 skills is even debately worth investing in.

This is worth ruining because as someone who makes tons of builds for many players from many guilds, one of my most commonly heard requests is "I want to be an archer." And they aren't always super thrilled when I send them back a melee build with 100-200 point archery splash and say "That's as good of an archer as you can get right now."
 
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Tashka

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Dec 4, 2021
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The outlined suggestion is actually a buff to anyone who full specs archery while they have a bow out. It only nerfs builds that invest 100 points into archery and stop there. Because that frankly needs a nerf. Full melee builds in heavy armor with a 100 point archery splash shouldn't be anywhere near as good as someone with a 400 point investment. Currently, they are. They do the same damage as a 400 point archer and only 1 of the other 3 skills is even debately worth investing in.

This is worth ruining because as someone who makes tons of builds for many players from many guilds, one of my most commonly heard requests is "I want to be an archer." And they aren't always super thrilled when I send them back a melee build with 100-200 point archery splash and say "That's as good of an archer as you can get right now."
I don't see how 300pts polearms or inability to main daggers would make anyone want to be an archer. If you make daggers secondary, people will start coming to you with a request of "i want to be an assassin" and you'll have to send them to a generic mellee build with a generic dagger sidearm.