Archer Nerfs

Archers have gone from balanced to over-powered to balanced to under-powered and back again. Is anyone else sick of all the changes. I often run out of arrows, and the charge cursor is hard to get used to, but should eventually pay off. In the end, I think archers are ready to settle down. Currently, I can't say any class is over-powered at all. I still find it easier to get a good kdr as an archer, but sometimes it's not best for the team. I switch classes constantly no, instead of staying as an archer or never touching the knight class. It was a bumpy road, but I like the turnout.

 

The balance between knight and archer is much better than before. Yes, archers are quite strong in distant battle but on the other side knights are very supperior in close combat ("stronger" bomb, shield push). The only reason why you can have so many kills as an archer is because the enemy team doesn't stop you with another archer. It happens so often that I can kill like +10 knights from somewhere above because they just keep on spawning and rushing the same way all the time ignoring me completely. They just need one archer shooting back at me and I can't easily snipe at the approaching knights.
I think the balance is very good atm. :)

 

same, the balance seems for me the best since ever in this game!

 

I really like how the shield breaking is potent now, but I think fully charged shots are too easy to spam. At the same time I think medium and light shots shouldn't fire slower. I think the archer charge ramp could be changed so that once you hit medium charge each subsequent increment of charge adds less and less power than previous increments. Like this graph.

 

That's a good idea Contrary. I also think archers should move slower when charging.

 

But then they'd be almost useless against knights. They way it is right now is very effective. Today I managed to slay 7 knights, 3 builders, and an archer while jumping over them and firing arrows before I finally got killed. If charging slowed me, I'd have been lucky to get one kill.

 

I think how many arrows you get from a tree should be a server-side option. I miss my two arrows. Even with the new arrow drops upon death, I can never get enough arrows, even with my aiming skill.

 

I don't think you should be rewarded for jumping around and shooting. Silly.

 

this. it completely wrecked the archers ability to do anything; mobility is where the archer needs to have an advantage.

 

There needs to be some punishment for jumping around and shooting though.

 

There is. It's called "we're squishy, have no melee weapon, and have a limited number of attacks before having to punch a tree".

 

You're probably a KD-ratio-concerned camper then. I've been able to get a hold of literally hundreds of them every game since they started dropping like they do now.

As for the overall discussion, I don't think archers need nerfs. Yes, they can be deadly, but it needs lots of skill and luck. They're so frail and have a limited number of attacks, they need to have a mobility advantage to have any chance of survival when pushing. Camping, which is so common lately, doesn't help a team much. If you make an archer totally useless aganist a knight in 1 on 1, they'd be pushed to a 100% support role again and we'll have 90% knight mosh pits.. again. Is that what you want? Every class needs to be fun and able to handle shit.

 

Summed up my thoughts. Generally I don't like anykind of movement punishes or nerfs- Already the falling stun is too much.

 

There are only a few balance issues with archers at this time, at least in my opinion.

One, it's too hard to get arrows now. +1 arrow for each hit on a tree takes forever to get a good amount, and then you just end up dying and losing most of them.

To fix this issue, I recommend changing the arrow gain to +2 per hit once again, but lowering the maximum amount of arrows an archer can carry to something around 30 arrows. This way, archers need a few trees to remain well-stocked, but they can get arrows fast enough to the point that playing as an archer is no longer boring.

The second problem is the fact that archer vs. archer combat is horribly difficult.
Basically, the archer with more arrows, which is generally the one that's been on a walltop for ages, wins, because he/she can keep spamming them, effectively keeping enemy archers from ever getting out of cover without getting shot in the face.

This can also be fixed by lowering the maximum amount of arrows. Archer will eventually have to "reload," and that's when the archers that are currently in hiding can show themselves and do some damage.

The last problem is the event I call "The Chase." Basically, when an archer is stuck on the same level as an enemy knight, the combat gets ridiculous. The knight attempts give chase to the archer by jumping while simultaneously holding his/her shield to block incoming arrows. The archer generally runs backward, jumping, AND firing arrows to try and kill or slow down the knight.

This combat, one, makes no sense, and two, is not fun. If you lose as the knight, you feel like you're cheated because the archer can run, jump, and shoot all at the same time, and if you lose as the archer, you feel cheated because knights can block all your arrows just by holding up their shields.

Fixing this isn't going to be simple. Archers, logically, should not be allowed to shoot while jumping, and should be considerably slowed while charging. Of course, to counter that, you would have to buff something else, like the archer's charged arrow damage. You could make a fully charged arrow and insta-kill, but that would be too overpowered.

All in all, I haven't fully figured out how to make "The Chase" more interesting, but perhaps the devs will come up with a way to make it a fair fight.

 

I really like your idea of an arrow cap.

Do it.

 

The arrow cap is actually a great idea! As for the "chase", I liked how it was in the test build. Basically all unsheilded enemies got insta-killed. Unfortunately, archers were quite over-powered. I propose that archers get this power, but are slowed down when charged, like it once was. I wish there was a better way...

 

I'm not quite sure about an arrow cap.
I'd like it if it was high enough, not something like 30.
If you kill an enemy archer you're going to get his, which will usually be pretty high, something like 30-40.
So a cap of around 50-60 might be good. But not 30 :>

As for movement debuffs, I might be fine with slightly slower movement. I think what needs to be stressed by the game is that after a knight gets this close to you, you're going to die.

However, one other thing which I think is really significant is the amount of terrain destruction. Because if the map is blow to hell with tunnels and debris everywhere, it can make an archers job much harder.
But at the start of a game, archers are really strong, with lots of fall or rolling land making long horizontal shots ultra easy.

 

Game breaking stuff is being suggested here. We've had some of this in game already, and it simply didn't work. It's gone. It is almost perfect right now.

I can agree with a 50-60 arrow limit though, but not with getting +2 arrows from a tree. It will be all the same if you do BOTH these changes. The arrow capacity limit alone might nerf camping even further though, that's good.