[428] General Archer Discussion

Discuss being an Archer in general, discussion here is related but not limited to the changes as of build [428].

Spoiler: Build 370-393 Changelog

Full Changelog:​

“zf” = zombie fortress​

- u_shownames now uses new player name style instead of big stupid one ​

- spectators with u_shownames see all player names ​

- spectators now see unit counters ​

- Fixed single character player names no longer crash the server (and are therefore allowed) (#327) ​

- Fixed full name not showing on linux/mac when someone changes teams (#151) ​

- Fixed username is not cased correctly after successful authentication. (#237) ​

- dropped the materials counter delay ​

- the blinks still take a while to go away but the counter is always up to date ​

- Fixed broken Connect To…. (#148 and #1) ​

- Fixed Looks like red builder is going to build blue tiles (#254) ​

- Fixed breaking a shop that is on background tile doesn’t give mats (#253) ​

- Fixed setting high duration results in ban for 0 seconds (#266) ​

- large bans (longer than 2 years) and bans with -1 time now result in permbans. ​

- Added expiry time to listbans ​

- Made bans case-insensitive​

- Fixed - Archers deal massive damage to team catapults (#271) ​

- really fixed trap door+back wall = free money (removed hack) (#198) ​

- Fixed lost stone on removing trapbridge on background (#258)​

- Fixed GOALTICKS independent ticktime mod operation in director.cpp ​

- Fixed Knights attack catapults when they use it (#81)​

- Fixed various potential server crashes while fixing (#327) ​

- Various tweaks that may fix small bugs/instability - fixed ​

- KAG crash when closing KAG with server browser open (#333) ​

- addressed chat box/minibox background hardcoded, now takes center pixel colour. (#157) ​

- Fixed the listPlayers() script ​

- fixed abusable bug where spectators can block map start (#305) ​

- fixed more meaningful autoupdate failure messages for libcurl (#306) ​

- fixed the launcher menu text for the various sites sucked and fixed some of the URLs ​

- fixed can repair trap bridges with backwall (#205) ​

- fixed can repair other team’s door to be your own (only works blue->red) (#76) ​

- fixed about 3 related bugs/exploits ​

- fixed can’t slash shielded target sometimes (#276) ​

- fixed jumping on someone and slashing hurts you (#309) ​

- stomping does less damage to the stomper ​

- Fixed quarters don’t heal when there’s less than 0.5 hearts to heal (#353) ​

- fixed door breaking/fixing (#204)​

- updates to how paper rendering works ​

- Fixed catapults dont hurt backwall enough, though haven’t done bridges etc yet (likely related to arrows) (#331) ​

- Lowered chat spam timer and inserted anti-spam message if you exceed it rather than failing silently ​

- Added sandbox room and tweaked sandbox to include it ​

- sandbox now has free items and shops.​

- fixed server segfault due to API error conditions ​

- fixed quarters light not acting like a light ​

- fixed chests giving light by default ​

- bomb in zf costs 10 coins (was 20) ​

- more probability of zombie having coin ​

- disconnect issue should be fixed, please playtest for a while and see​

- fixed client-side light in blob ​

- added constructor to APIPlayer, too much non-initialized vars bugs ​

- fixed free full version access ​

- bots attack dead zombies ​

- removed buildnum from launcher caption to avoid confusion ​

- collapse anti-grief doesn’t work for outposts ​

- fixed charged arrows dealing no damage when shot through bridge (#321) ​

- fixed knights don’t stop when ordered to go to zombies ​

- destroying castle blocks in zf doesn’t remove coins ​

- bots try to jump over kegs​

- fixed bots not following orders when faced with zombies ​

- fixed throwing kegs into walls​

- removed “buying” zombies from Portal ​

​

​

Discuss.​

Build 394 Redirect.
Build 415 Redirect.
Build 420 Redirect.
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Build 424 and 428 Redirect.

 

It was the best build ever made! :D

 

Build 394 is out:

Spoiler: Build 393-394 Changelog

- bomb timers counting down too fast randomly
- falling too fast

 

I started playing during build 270 (I believe), and since then, the only thing which has changed in my ability to kill opponents has been shooting through Trap Bridges. I thought the devs intention was to prevent rapid-firing through Trap Bridges, only allowing full charged shots. Instead, the opposite is the case: rapid-firing is allowed, but not charged shots. Either way, that change does not much hinder my ability to slay my enemies.

The only other change since 270 was the removal of super-far-out zoom mode; I had to adjust to it, but it really hasn't had any major affect on my arching.

I really haven't had any difficulty adjusting to the changes as they've come out. I am generally loathed by the other team. Do you Devs feel Archer is balanced? I know that Knights continue to complain about OP Archers, but that's Knights for ya ;-)

 

"- fixed charged arrows dealing no damage when shot through bridge (#321)"

Is in the change log of 370-393, arrows act normally(as they did before 262?*) through bridges now. That period of time was strange, where arrows were blocked by bridges, but its over now! :)

I imagine Archers will be seeing some balancing soon, but we will see.

 

I am 100% for removing damage for minimally charged arrows. At least for knights. Not a lot has changed balance wise, except trees don't break our fall damage anymore. ;_;

 

Makes it so much easier to hate Gregs in Zombie Fortress.... unless you hate them already, in my case.

 

EXACTLY!
I dont care about ladders, but trees sure should break your fall.
it was one of those things that the (imho) weak archer could use to outsmart his enemies:
by freefalling and gracefully landing in a tree, while waiting for the three knights following him to plummet down on their faces.

 

Archers have a lot of advantages over other classes. And the only weakness I can spot is that they are extremely vulnerable at close range, the problem I have right now with archers is that they have to many ways to get rid of this weakness ex: spamming arrows, Using knights as meat shields to block other knights or arrows, hiding in towers, and the worst one of all is when archers get together and kill everything in their path so nobody can get near them.

Now that I got my complaining out of the way I can speak of the stuff I'm happy about archer.
Archer vs Archer is still as good as always.
Dead archers who fire arrows after their death kills teammates (I like the little things)
Blending in with corpses is fun :3
Never a moment when I think that my death was caused by stupid reasons, they are all my fault.

What should be fixed, added :

Too lazy to add my own stuff.

Balance between the classes are really broken, and I don't think that archers are to blame, I think its because the lack of efficient attacks from other classes ( the only two that I know that work about 40-80% of the time are bombs and catapult rocks) other attacks and objects ex: slashing, jabbing ,hammering , spikes and stone drops all require the archer to come closer to be killed.
My point is that anyone who thinks, will go nowhere near those things as an archer (unless he/her has support)

 

I have a solution, go archer :D

But if you really think archers are OP then maby we could change a fully charged shot to do only 1 heart of damage instead of 1.5?

 

I have a solution, go archer :D
Then whats the point attacking with other classes and yes going archer is the best solution right now, but then it turns into a ugly 5 vs 5 or more, archer battles with knights and builders getting slaughtered because they went outside of their tower for a few seconds.
Edit : The point is that archers have such a efficient way of attacking and defending that it makes other classes feel stupid to be even playing.

 

Archers have arrows
Knights have bombs
Builders have Catapults

 

arrows are cheap and don't damage any buildings they only effect enemy's (unless you know the person dies when he is charging his/her shot and kills his/her team mate(s))
Catapults are very resource consuming and are quickly destroyed by many things. They effect buildings so you cant just fire anywhere and cost ten stone per shot.
Bombs are dangerous they can have chain reactions, blow up buildings and sometimes stuff up other peoples bomb jumps. They cost normally 20 coins to make. (half the time they are never used because the person dies)
With arrows you don't have to worry about anything that has a negative impact on your team.
Ex: you cant have five people throwing bombs right next to each other one of them will surely blow up his friends. sometimes your bombs will blow up traps or buildings allowing it to be easier for enemy's to get in. (negative impact to team)
Ex:Catapults destroy other catapults so unless you get them in order they will just be one left. the possibility for collapsing your towers by mistake is quite good. (negative impact to team.)
Ex: arrows can go through teammates and cannot destroy buildings or traps not even workshops (unless its one of the other teams) so no bad impact with hurting your team (except for catapults)
Now which is the best to choose.

 

But, duuh... They're arrows: a stick with a steel tip.
They are adding fire arrows soon, anyways.

 

Sorry for sounding like a boring person But I would rather have the kag team fix the balance of classes before they started adding new stuff that could break the balance even more.
Also after trying the new test build I thought there was no point in making wooden blocks (except for emergences) and adding fire arrows will make me want to use them less.
So what are you going to use those fire arrows on?

 

this is half bullshit, half true, I'll try to explain:
TRUE
1: spamming arrows
this is stupid and OP. thats all I can say. there are two solutions: one is that knights have armor, so they cant be arrowspammed.
second would be to reduce firerate (which I, and every other archer, would not like)
2: archer legions
this can be countered, but it will cost both teams a lot of lives.
can only be solved by nerfing the whole class, which is the best and worst way of balancing the game at the same time
BULLSHIT
1: meatshieldknights and quarter abuse
this is not wrong, its just sissy. there are servers that kick people who dont play nice, so play on those servers.
2: hiding in towers
this is the mistake that everyone makes:
archers are MEANT to hide and snipe!
If they would not do this, other archers would kill them, and the ticket depletionrate would increase with maybe a 100%

BULLSHIT might be a little rude, but those things are the things an archer is meant to do!
If you ask me, the problem is different: archers are an easy class, knights are harder to play.
the knight-way to counter archers is bombjumping or shieldbashing.
these are both hard to perform for beginners, and even pro's make mistakes at them sometimes.
archers can't do anything that requires skill, so they will focus on prosniping.
if archers had something to work for, then they would not snipe and hide, but try to use those things.
(I know that this sounds strange, but I found that it works in almost every other game I play!)

 

Yes I completely agree with what you saying is true that archers have to do this stuff or otherwise they would die most the time, Just the fact then when they do it becomes almost impossible to kill them because they have such a strong attack (arrows that have a long range) and the defense (towers,meat shield knights, archer legions) There are only a few ways of countering this problem and it gets harder to do so the better the tower or the number they have. This is the thing that ticks me off, archers have safe ways to kill people without using much skill. sure knights can group together and they just might make it to the archer legion, but by the time they get there all the archers would be in the tower. Same thing with archer vs archer, most archers that don't think they can win in the open go towards a tower. You all should know this by now towers make archers bitches to fight because they can pop through doors and have a large height advantage.

You could send wave after wave of people but they would get nowhere. (depends on how good the archers are)
Also if your talking about knights killing archers with bombs and bashes your a bit late they nerfed it into something useless a few builds ago.
Edit: Dammit I need to learn how to make my sentences less all-over the place.
Also your reasons are bullshit too, the point of the archer is to support, kill, buy time and to hold a position on the map not to snipe and hide.
My point is that archers do their job to well when they are together compared to other classes.

 

EXACTLY! NOW YOU GET IT!
BUT: nearly every archer uses this strategy: snipe, retreat to heal, repeat.
that's why archers should need moves that require more skill, combined with a (small!) nerf (gray arrows dont damage knights)

 

Archers don't need nerfs they are the most balanced class.
Other classes just need ways to get rid of these archer tactics(tunneling is the a good one) but so far knights have been given nerfs and builders given nothing.
And I don't see anything being done about it.

 

The only logically developed method of fighting archer legions is by Catapults. Unfortunately as for now, Catapults cannot survive long enough to deal any significant damage to hideouts. Also, Catapult projectiles might be still too slow. Thus, the good way to tweak the balance off Archers is to make Catapults invulnerable to arrows, which would make perfect sense, since in reality there's no amount of arrows that can really damage a multi-ton-weight wooden construction, not speaking about destroying it. It's pefectly fine to destroy it with swords, hammers, bombs or falling stones. Sniping the operator is also valid.

Anothe option is to reduce the minimum damage Archers can deal with low-power shot to the minimum half-heart, since many players getting disturbed with their ability to outmaneuver Knights in melee range.

Finally, a random dispersion can be implemented in order to make archers less self-sustained with their currently rock-solid aim. That wouldn't allow archers to keep constant pressure over chosen area and would add some luck modifier to their performance.