On Alvarin changes and bows

[Necromaru]

With recent talks on changes to Alvarin clades, it brought to my mind a couple thoughts, related not only to the race, but also to archer as a class.

First off, it is very weird to me that a race that is meant to be good bowmen - further evidenced by the presence of multiple clades as well as race-exclusive masteries that offer bonuses to bows - still isn't as good with a bow in hands when compared to other races that have very clear and different identities.
The Thursar are powerful fighters and heavy melee hitters, but they can also wield a bow with 125 strength (with their +4 raw strength mastery), the Oghmir are durable and tough, but they are also able to wield a bow with 124 strength (with their +1 raw strength mastery), while an Alvarin, even going 23 years old instead of 31, losing out on 1 dexterity and 1 constitution for 1 extra strength, investing multiple clade gifts for bonuses with bows, and investing not only 3 points for +1 raw strength mastery, but also 6 more for those 5 race-exclusive +1 bow-strength bonuses, can only reach a bow of 120 strength.
It makes no sense to me that with all that investment into being a better archer they still are worse archers than other races with very different identities and less investment into bow-related bonuses, hence I believe a buff to the clade gifts "Archer's Arm" and "Archer's Shoulder", increasing their bonuses from 10 bow-strength to 15, or simply increasing the bow-strength masteries from +1 per node to +2, for a total of +10 instead of the current +5 would make a lot of sense and bring the race's bow-wielding capabilities more in line with others or slightly better considering it is something the race is meant to do well.

And since I already touched the topic of archers, I'll go ahead and bring some more thoughts on that matter: It is a fact that bows are strictly related to strength.
While dexterity provides you with some weak spot chance, the highest damage arrows (longbow arrows) do not weak spot at all, and that chance only applies to headshots, which are not something even a very skilled player can pull off consistently against moving targets, in fact even very skilled archers will still miss many shots, even if targeting the chest, due to how the hitboxes work and how hectic people's movement is while fighting - specially if they know they're being targeted by an archer.
Dexterity should also improve the use of bows in other ways, for example increased draw speed based on the stat. this wouldn't change much to horse archers which already are considered good, or even negatively impact it in some extreme cases since they have low dexterity in general, but would greatly improve the potential of foot archers.
Another way would be to simply improve how weak spots work.
From my understanding weak spots represents the lucky (or precise) shot that lands on a gap of the enemy armour, hence it ignores a significant portion of the target's defences... Why does it only apply to head shots? Do armours not have any gaps outside of the helmet? I believe weak spots should apply to the chest with either reduced efficacy (less armour ignored) or reduced chance (about half) than it does to the head, then the same thing when hitting the limbs (arms or lower body), make it half of what it would be in the chest, one fourth of the head shots. Head shots would still be encouraged for those confident in landing those since the damage is already higher and the weak spot will still be stronger/more common when hitting the head, but simply by allowing archers to target the chest, an easier target than the head, and still get value from weak spots could go a long way to improve the life of archers in general, specially foot archers that tend to invest more heavily on dexterity when compared to mounted ones, while also encouraging builds that go deeper into investing points in archery for marksmanship.

Speaking of investing more points, it would be great to add more skills that would be making bows stronger but requiring more primary investment to further differentiate ranged-focused builds from foot fighters, since currently any footie can be as strong with a bow in hands as a dedicated archer, and a foot archer can still have most if not all of the required skills to still be as good as a foot fighter in melee. How about a skill equivalent to aggressive stance, but that only applies to ranged weapons instead of only to melee? It could also add more build variability to mounted archers, since some might prefer to drop some of their magic skills for more damage with the bow.

And before anyone calls me a mounted archer hater, I believe these changes should end up making mounted archers stronger in general, even if they suffer slightly slower draw speeds from low dexterity they would still benefit from weak spot changes, and if they choose to invest more points into archery they'll also benefit from that extra damage. It is only a matter of the fact that mounted archers - with mounted magery as well, the famous 'Dark Archer' - are a currently viable and strong build in mo2, while foot archers just are not, hence foot archers deserve a bit more love without impacting mounted ones as much.

 

[Emdash]

Simply bow str should be a function of your total strength, but it shouldn't be 1:1. It should be enough that a max str (thursar / ogh) can pull a good bow, but the best bows should be pulled by elves and khurs / humans.

To accomplish this, you simply make it so that your bow pull strength is not your strength, but say... 85% or 90%. Then you adjust the elf clades so that they have a high pull. And you allow humans to take a bow pull clade / mastery as well. Then, you offer a lesser bonus clade for thur/ogh.

It makes sense that bow pull is related to strength, but your ability to use a bow should not just be having high str and putting 100 points. Bows should be good enough that you can spec into them. It needs to go that way.

Now that the pop is dwindling again, I hope they will listen!

 

[Sally]

With recent talks on changes to Alvarin clades, it brought to my mind a couple thoughts, related not only to the race, but also to archer as a class.

First off, it is very weird to me that a race that is meant to be good bowmen - further evidenced by the presence of multiple clades as well as race-exclusive masteries that offer bonuses to bows - still isn't as good with a bow in hands when compared to other races that have very clear and different identities.
The Thursar are powerful fighters and heavy melee hitters, but they can also wield a bow with 125 strength (with their +4 raw strength mastery), the Oghmir are durable and tough, but they are also able to wield a bow with 124 strength (with their +1 raw strength mastery), while an Alvarin, even going 23 years old instead of 31, losing out on 1 dexterity and 1 constitution for 1 extra strength, investing multiple clade gifts for bonuses with bows, and investing not only 3 points for +1 raw strength mastery, but also 6 more for those 5 race-exclusive +1 bow-strength bonuses, can only reach a bow of 120 strength.
It makes no sense to me that with all that investment into being a better archer they still are worse archers than other races with very different identities and less investment into bow-related bonuses, hence I believe a buff to the clade gifts "Archer's Arm" and "Archer's Shoulder", increasing their bonuses from 10 bow-strength to 15, or simply increasing the bow-strength masteries from +1 per node to +2, for a total of +10 instead of the current +5 would make a lot of sense and bring the race's bow-wielding capabilities more in line with others or slightly better considering it is something the race is meant to do well.

And since I already touched the topic of archers, I'll go ahead and bring some more thoughts on that matter: It is a fact that bows are strictly related to strength.
While dexterity provides you with some weak spot chance, the highest damage arrows (longbow arrows) do not weak spot at all, and that chance only applies to headshots, which are not something even a very skilled player can pull off consistently against moving targets, in fact even very skilled archers will still miss many shots, even if targeting the chest, due to how the hitboxes work and how hectic people's movement is while fighting - specially if they know they're being targeted by an archer.
Dexterity should also improve the use of bows in other ways, for example increased draw speed based on the stat. this wouldn't change much to horse archers which already are considered good, or even negatively impact it in some extreme cases since they have low dexterity in general, but would greatly improve the potential of foot archers.
Another way would be to simply improve how weak spots work.
From my understanding weak spots represents the lucky (or precise) shot that lands on a gap of the enemy armour, hence it ignores a significant portion of the target's defences... Why does it only apply to head shots? Do armours not have any gaps outside of the helmet? I believe weak spots should apply to the chest with either reduced efficacy (less armour ignored) or reduced chance (about half) than it does to the head, then the same thing when hitting the limbs (arms or lower body), make it half of what it would be in the chest, one fourth of the head shots. Head shots would still be encouraged for those confident in landing those since the damage is already higher and the weak spot will still be stronger/more common when hitting the head, but simply by allowing archers to target the chest, an easier target than the head, and still get value from weak spots could go a long way to improve the life of archers in general, specially foot archers that tend to invest more heavily on dexterity when compared to mounted ones, while also encouraging builds that go deeper into investing points in archery for marksmanship.

Speaking of investing more points, it would be great to add more skills that would be making bows stronger but requiring more primary investment to further differentiate ranged-focused builds from foot fighters, since currently any footie can be as strong with a bow in hands as a dedicated archer, and a foot archer can still have most if not all of the required skills to still be as good as a foot fighter in melee. How about a skill equivalent to aggressive stance, but that only applies to ranged weapons instead of only to melee? It could also add more build variability to mounted archers, since some might prefer to drop some of their magic skills for more damage with the bow.

And before anyone calls me a mounted archer hater, I believe these changes should end up making mounted archers stronger in general, even if they suffer slightly slower draw speeds from low dexterity they would still benefit from weak spot changes, and if they choose to invest more points into archery they'll also benefit from that extra damage. It is only a matter of the fact that mounted archers - with mounted magery as well, the famous 'Dark Archer' - are a currently viable and strong build in mo2, while foot archers just are not, hence foot archers deserve a bit more love without impacting mounted ones as much.

I'd just make heavy armor nerf bow accuracy and have a massive stamina penalty, you will immediately differentiate foot archers from foot fighters.

It isn't realistic to be pulling back a bow in full plate armor, with a helmet on, and still being able to aim accurately and hold the bow for sustained periods oftime.

If weakspot applied to the body, i think it might be too strong if it applied equivalently to the percent chance on headshots.. It would have to be a drastic decrease in percentage from the headshot weakspot chance. I think that would be fair.

You don't want a game full of archers, as no one would play melee if you gave bows the weakspot chance on body hits that headshots currently have.

I like the idea of increasing the clade strength bonus, but... Maybe it would be a bit too strong, difficult to say. I get what you're saying about thursars and oghmirs using a bow, but they have a massive decrease in movement speed, so it makes sense they'd be able to get more range on their shots.

Make the armor nerf i suggested, atleast then they're not going to be armored thursars/oghmirs shooting bows, which is what is really broken. Armored Oghmirs, however, need bows to catch people who run, but what they don't need is massive accuracy for long range shots. Again, this is why i feel this armor nerf would fix the overall issue. Shooting at mid range opponents trying to flee, not taking long range sniper shots.

 

[Necromaru]

If weakspot applied to the body, i think it might be too strong if it applied equivalently to the percent chance on headshots.. It would have to be a drastic decrease in percentage from the headshot weakspot chance. I think that would be fair.

Exactly why I suggested only half the chance or half the armor ignored for chest and one fourth for arms and lower body. For sure the same chance and full effect would be nuts

I'd just make heavy armor nerf bow accuracy and have a massive stamina penalty, you will immediately differentiate foot archers from foot fighters.

I like this idea, but currently foot archer focused builds are quite terrible, so making them strong enough to be viable first, using compensation nerfs to bring back in line later, is my line of thought

You don't want a game full of archers, as no one would play melee if you gave bows the weakspot chance on body hits that headshots currently have.

No one wants a game full of ranged players everywhere, that would suck, but they should at least be viable for people who really want to play those, so some changes are needed.

 

[Sally]

One other thing i'd like to add... For me, archery's failures can be narrowed down to three things. These three things are tied to other broader issues the game has.

1. Heavy armor : It is just generally too strong across the board and causes problems in many areas of the game.

2. Healing : Because archery is so low damage as a whole, it can literally just be healed through. The only thing that can't, really, is a naked mage. Heavy armor players just laugh as they bandage over everything; as to medium armor, any armor.. Really. You'd think they'd put in a kind of.. Poison arrow, that blocks healing, like corrupt for mages.. But NOPE. Now.. If archers could certainly land every hit, this would be less of a problem overall, but they can't. Why can't they? Because of the final issue.

3. The arrows move too slowly : You can visibly sidestep arrows at medium range. The only time your arrow is certainly hitting an aware target is when they're in close range, but by that point... You're in serious danger if you keep your bow out. Second, player movement has no momentum, meaning they can switch direction instantly. Take a horse for example.. Why are horses so much easier to hit, outside of just being bigger targets? They move with momentum, so you can reliably predict where they'll be, and shoot your arrow towards that location. With players, you can't do that due to the momentum.

Overall.. Archers, as they are now, are just a significantly worse version of a mage. They have harder aiming, as they have projectile aiming as opposed to hitscan. They don't bypass armor. They can't stop heals. The ONLY thing they have, is more range; being able to shoot all the way to draw distance, which has minimal utility when the travel time for the arrow to get to that distance is 6 seconds. It amounts to just being a horse killer.

 

[Jackdstripper]

I just dont believe SV ever wanted a full on “stand alone” archer class. A bow has always just been the ranged option of the melee class. Never a viable class in itself. Ever since inception, the only viable “class” that has been bow based has been Mounted Archery. I really dont see them changing things around anytime soon.