[428] General Archer Discussion

The thing that disturbs me the most about low-power spam is the fact that it still gets rid of charge ( slash meter,arrow power) this means that even if you get close to the archer your attacks can be stopped and every time you attack you slow down a bit, making it easier for the archer to get away.

I would like if archers got rid of that ability to stop charging attacks (slashes,firing arrows, jabs too) so I could just take the damage when running up to them but still have the chance to hit them, instead of now where I die just because I tried to slash or jab even when they are 3 blocks in front of me.
For lower power arrows only.

 

same with the archer. If hes running away from a knight and he tries to shoot, he slows down too.

 

Unlike the knight, archers have range meaning that they don't have to get close.
And jabs and slashes actually make knights slow down more because you cant just rapidly spam it as fast as arrow spam.
There is not much negative decrease of speed from spamming arrows but for jabs theres a lot more of the decrease of speed, making it impossible to catch up with archers unless you ignore using shielding or attacking.

 

S

Still, you can usually avoid attacking an archer until you're literally on his head, then he has no chance to avoid your attack. Worked for me for a long time now. Combat tactics vs Archer is nowhere more simple than with Knight vs Knight situation. Not everyone can see trough that though.

 

I would love to see the archers you are up against they seem like easy kills, a archer who plays normally would never allow a knight to get anywhere near him at all costs. Combat vs archer tactics are hardly present in these last few builds, bombs and catapults are easily countered by archers that know how to aim, and trying to get close and melee an archer is the worst idea that you can have. Going under ground seems to be the best way to counter archers right now.

If your killing archers as a knight with no bombs, then your facing people that almost have no skill in playing this game.

 

Eh, it's not like that I can somehow decide which kind of people I would play against. It's all about average skill players everywhere and it takes exceptional archers, who can beat a Knight in the melee (or a very lame Knight). Personally, I prefer playing Builder, focusing on Catapult warfare. But if there's too many Builders already, I will not hesitate to change to a Knight. And any time I see Archer in the open, I just go, withstand some arrow spam and beat the shit out of him, no matter which server I play at, no matter is it's premium or regular player.

But in most cases I'm just rushing for Catapults and keep using them until the end of the game, and still there's no archers yet that would made me to give up. Besides, there's always catabunker, which makes you pretty much isolated against any archer's attacks.

 

I find that the mechanics of the game now are such that archers have a higher skill cap than knights. With knight combat it is more reliant on lag and or glitches than actual tactics. It used to be that you got an insane height advantage but I'm not seeing that nearly at all anymore.

However! Archers do have height advantage, while you're above someone you do 1 heart of damage with grey charged arrows. Thus archers have a higher skill cap because you have to outmaneuver your opponent and you're rewarded for it.

I used to be a knight/builder. However now I'm mostly archer because most of the time teams have too many builders anyway.

Just food for thought.

So generally speaking, archers will beat knights in 1v1 if both players are at the skill cap of their class.

 

Trying to vertically fight an archer with builders and knights is a total pain , I have seen One archer hold up 5 knights and one builder just because he/she had a hight advantage.

Sorry I'm from Australia where most of the archers are skillful and don't hesitate to kill or to run back to safety when they see danger.
It doesn't take exceptional archers to kill a knight, just an archer who thinks that he is in danger and decides to spam arrows at you so she/he can get away, anyone can do this because the skill required to spam is very low.
As I said before I would love to see these average archer players, who don't even think about running away from danger.

 

They do run away. But they also spam arrows, and when they do, their speed is halved. Since I believe it's better to avoid arrows or take some damage, but kill the bastard, rather than shielding and taking no damage, but letting him escape, I've managed to deal with them that way, even if it can ocassionally get me killed.

 

First thing spamming does not decrease half of movement speed, second thing If you decide to absorb the damage your going to get killed in four seconds, third thing low power arrows can stop charging attacks which are jab,slash and arrow charge, meaning that the chance of that arrow stopping your attack is high. Now add that all together and see how impossible it is to hit an archer without dieing.
Even with all this bullshit, your saying you can just run up to them and kill them.
Your playing with people way below your skill level if thats the case, or can I please have whatever hacks you are using.

 

I am a knight all the way. I barely ever use archer. Just don't find it to my liking (gathering arrows and such) but when i do pick up the archer for some reason i have no trouble using it. It just comes on to easy. Point 'n' shoot, spam if they get close. Even though knights and kind of the same, it just takes more of a skill to do well as a knight. since you need timing. In fact most of the archers I know can not play knight at a skilled or even average level, but when the knights i know, pick it up. Such as Exid here. Do extremely well. Basically what i am saying is that archers involve a lot less skill to play.

 

Archers can overpower any amount of skill with a minimal amount of effort if people are playing other classes , I have only seen a few archers that actually have the ability to play greatly.

 

This basically. The amount of pressure even a single archer can provide on advancing knights is ridiculous, whether it be threatening a fully charged shot or rapid close ranged spamming. I consider myself a competent archer, and for the longest time I was the most stoic of advocates for the archer. Only now have I started playing builder and knight more frequently and began to notice how utterly ridiculous a group of well positioned archers can be.

I believe archers have a lower difficulty curve than knights do, as well as a lower skill ceiling. That is to say the the difference in combat effectiveness between a veteran archer and a moderately skilled archer is less than than the difference between veteran knights and moderately skilled knights. It takes far less skill to be at least a semi-effective archer than it does to be a semi-effective knight. There are simply more mechanics to learn and perfect as knight, and knight combat is much less forgiving than sitting cozy and warm atop a tower with an industrial bin full of arrows. (Although I suppose knight combat can be unpredictable at times due to bugs/lag/glitches).

Spoiler

Not sure how clear that is, but try to make some sense of it if you can.

I firmly believe that an archer who plays their cards right should only be killed by bombless knights on rare occasions. Up until recently I would have refuted every point made against archers in this thread blindly, but now I see how scary it is to allow a near skill-less mechanic such as quick spamming to dominate the metagame. Perhaps if jabs could clash with arrows to negate damage, or arrows didn't reset slash charge, or even slowing down the rate of spam. I believe any one of the suggestions above would be a step in the right direction at the very least.

 

I have to disagree with you strongly on this one, because most of the time, it really has to do with the player's awareness and focus while charging up as a group. Most of the time, knights who charge in a group often feel a lot more confident with their mob mentality causing them to overlook archers that are weighing them down from above. This also applies to archers who also overlook the situation when they are entrenched which often gets them punished by good snipers. The real fact is, most knights or advancing groups to be more general, get severely punished for attempting to overhaul a standing enemy structure without help from a local builder or archers and it's definitely important to realize the idea that groups should proceed with a variety a long with a steady strategy.

Apparently you claim knights have a higher learning curve and I have to agree with you not because they are the inferior class but because they have a lot more abilities than archer making them the tertiary species of close combat warfare. Archers on the other hand, only have 1 offensive ability and that is the arrow minus the drop kick they had a few builds ago making them even less efficient in close combat. Knights on the other hand get a larger tool box involving bombs, slashes and even their shield can be used offensively. The only draw back is close-combat versus range which changes when the knight relies on his/her bombs even more.

I've seen people die a lot more from bomb spammers especially if the bomb is coming from high ground. If you play on gold servers and watch the moderately decent knight players camp by a workshop and spam their explosives, you'll learn to appreciate the arrows that you can block. Generally, if one as an archer intends to play a lot more offensives, he or she is up to a bigger challenge especially if they're in open air while vulnerable to bombs. In short, archers are not the culprits of the imbalances but rather the team's foolish decisions and oversight.

@Exid

That's very untrue, as the minimal skilled archers often get hunted down by the more skilled archers while being kill farms to knights with good coordinated bomb throws. Even judging by how I play archer, it is rather frustrating trying to find better ground and having to retreat as soon as I encounter approaching knights armed with bombs. In fact, most of the time I end up killing the builder trying to take down the tower and book it as soon one of them lights the most and most of the time. If there's no shelter or any desired ground level, I sometimes get gibbed depending how they throw it but if the bomb is approaching for higher ground, the situation will be a lot more different in a harmful way.

aaaaaaaaaaaaa<--------->
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<----within danger of bomb range-->

Both knights and archers are the disciplinary whips of combat and if the knight thinks he/she should rush into base while negating forms of threat then that knight is certainly not fit for basic virtual warfare.

@Killatron

Any class has an advantage at heights, even a knight with bombs can wipe out an approaching army much easier than an archer. This also applies to builders who rely on stone traps and catapults. Let alone the sky-bridges that changes things by a land slide when it comes to ground versus aerial combat.

 

What exactly are you disagreeing with?

There's no argument from me here. There isn't a lot that you can do to efficiently counter a large number of skilled archers on a well built tower with a steep overhang. When you take a castle under those circumstances you're fighting an uphill battle and sacrificing precious units.

I mean really, a couple of archers in a tower picking off knights is mildly irritating but fine; nothing game-breaking. It's when you get towers stacked with archers, melting everything who approach them that it starts to get a little silly. I will mention the value of tunneling in this situation though, it can provide a counter to such situations, but the defenders will still have the advantage. This option isn't available on island/float maps though, and the game more than often spirals into a long, boring stall war between archers.

Well I'm not claiming anything, it's just my opinion. I think we're pretty much on the same page with this point though.

I'm not suggesting that knights are necessarily inferior to archers, they both play their part in the games and have different roles. I simply feel that the archer has mechanics associated with it which are hardly befitting of a class that is supposed to be relegated to ranged combat. The fact that the archer even has a possibility of beating a knight via playing Tarzan and spamming from tree to tree or backpedal-spamming is unacceptable in my eyes. You want ranged combat? Have your ranged combat. Keep your 1.5 heart damage stun-arrows. Spamming on top of a building into a crowd or backpedaling while clicking rhythmically takes next to no skill and is a legitimately powerful, hard to counter strategy in many cases. They're archers, not mounted turrets or Gatling guns.

Outside of bombs, archers have no efficient counters other than other archers. Do you see the vicious cycle here? One team starts arrow turtling a little, the other team responds in kind with more archers. This slows down the flow of the game and creates long boring wars of attrition. Last I checked, this game was called King Arthur's Gold, not King Arthur's Archers. I'm perfectly happy for archers to exist, they just need some minor (and I do stress minor) tweaks to help balance things out.

I don't mean to sound rude, but you'll have to excuse me if I value the opinions of professional video game developers over that of your own when it comes to game design and balance.

 

This is why I brought up the specific census of group decision. The way you're setting the balance point between a group of archers is putting them in a defensive situation versus a few group of knights. What I'm questioning is: Why does that group exclude the two other classes that would make the siege plausible? Perhaps I should emphasize on team variety like I did before. I've participated in many successful sieges often consisting of a well set-up teams. Most of the teams I'm in has a few builders constructing offensive towers for our archers and knights who assist those archers in sniping down the enemy's units or going forth into the front lines. The real tenet here is that a group of knights shouldn't be able to take down a tower filled with archers a lone because the differences that really lays the brick of battle is that the archers have a tower and the knights are in open air.

Furthermore, I've always been viewing the knight's bomb as the major tool of their success as I've seen them being hurled from defensive towers while jumbling our siege bands and destroying archers who are anywhere near its reachable radius. Not to be cocky or bold, but I've been able to snipe these entrenched archers enough to disable them from shooting out the nests and at the same time, I've seen brilliant builders who make quick and simple structures that are strong enough to host archers and bomb knights to exterminate the opposition team's archers. Of course our battles are longer but they are more enriched with enough elasticity for more learning curve exposure. To be honest, I wouldn't beg to differ a tower filled with bomb spammers to share a more devastating result. Though if it's efficient knowing we can provide the same counter, It will fulfill the quota of "what is tolerable."

First of all, I'd like to mention that the Tarzan and back-peda proposing a possibility for the archer's victory is plausible and you're only think through one side of the coin.

The real deal here is to create a diverse "bi-competition" that involves each class of the opposite roles as well instead of developing a division. You might detest the idea that archers are strong in acrobatic mid-range combat, but they're existence is tied to a will to keep their range at all times and that is why they can climb trees and arrow climb. Knights on the other hand have a larger pool of abilities like shielding, parachuting and bombs which allow them to travel to the battle field more efficiently. I should not forget to mention that such abilities when conducted through a combo can result in devastating offensive morale. I simply feel the way you do except it regards knights having the ability to do aoe/range damage with a bomb while being a close combat associate. However I still remain tolerable to it's existence as I support "Bi-Competition". We're not aiming to make a game where knights fight knights and archers fight archers, instead, we conjoint their proficiency into team play.

I would like to remind you that discussions like this are to expand the subjects and situations that one might need to tackle. Perhaps you won't value other's opinions but that's the job of the observing party and certainly not yours to judge. Before the argument staggers itself into the informal let's start by eliminating such child plays.

 

Where are you getting this from? A bunch of knights at the bottom of an archer tower is hardly a siege so much as a massacre or a shooting gallery. When I say "When you take a castle under those circumstances you're fighting an uphill battle etc...", I'm accounting for the fact that there will be builders and such involved, but it just doesn't really matter as much as it should. The amount of effort, resources, skill and units that have to be put in to siege an archer tower is grossly more than the amount of effort and skill required for a bunch of archers to point, aim, click and use the flip off emote occasionally. Let's not limit ourselves though. Let us assume then that not only does the attacking team have builders, but the defending team has builders too. It goes both ways. Builders repairing damaged stone. Creating annoying overhangs to waste bombs, dropping stone and repairing team doors. All these things increase the longevity of both the defending tower and the archers inside.

It's not that archers can't be countered by sheer brute force and persistence. It's just that it is incredibly inefficient to do so in terms of both units and resources. If the defending team has several well built towers, or a nice tower on a hill position, by the time you've broken through all their defences, the battle is more than often already lost.

(I omitted small amounts of redundant text to keep the quote short, but that's the general gist of it. If you think I omitted terribly a important point I'll edit a spoiler around the full quote later).

So let's recap here. What does it takes to handily defeat archers in a tower (possibly with builder support)?

1.) "Brilliant" builders.
2.) Having either more archers than the opposition or having archers that are obviously more skilled that the defender's archers.
3.) Knights spamming an instagib projectile that can cost anywhere from 10-20 gold depending on the server.

It takes all that to handily defeat humble archers (possibly with a combination of builders as alluded to above). That is the problem; it's do-able but stupidly inefficient. Obviously having more skilled archers or more archers grants an advantage, because an archer's only hard counters are bombs and other archers. The number of archers dictates the entire game and the flow of battle. It all comes down to MOAR ARCHERS. You're assuming far too much. Rarely will you find that combination of players on a team in a bog standard public CTF game. If your team is that skilled in the first place or you have enough players to out-archer the opposition, then you were probably bound to win from the start. Regardless, it will still be an uphill struggle.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.

I suppose the knights will just go out back and pick all their bombs from the bomb tree, right? Bombs cost a fair amount of money and don't have the range to combat archers from a tower or fortified position. All it takes is 3 archers synchronizing their shots to insta-kill a knight from behind his shield. I suppose the bomb-knight team will need some archers to combat the attacking team's archers then, huh? And as if by magic we're back to where we started. The vicious cycle of archers begetting more archers. The stall war begins. It's dull and it is boring. You may want to play boring games for "learning curve exposure" or whatever, but I think I speak for most people when I say I play this game for fun. But I suppose if you do find stall wars fun, more power to you. Everyone has an opinion and a right to vocalize it. I'm not going to attempt to take that away from you.

Spoiler

So suggest some ways to give knights a fighting chance (outside of an optional and expensive utility) to counter a simple panic button for an archer. The amount of skill required to defeat a spamming archer without bombs is much higher than the amount of skill required to spray and pray as archer. You say you want bi-competition, but when one out of 2 effective counters for archers are other archers, you're just encouraging archers to fight other archers. I don't see how this makes sense at all. There are glaring inconsistencies all over the place.

Could you please could stop putting words in my mouth? I didn't say at any point that I don't value people's opinions, nor that I don't value your opinion. When it comes to balancing the game, I'll put my money with the devs over you every time. That is not an insult, I'm sure everybody else would do the same for me. The fact of the matter is that you insulted the developers and took the high ground, then insinuated that I was being childish. I don't agree with every decision that the devs have made either, but I trust their judgement. Let's keep on topic here.

 

First, it does. Try to compare your passive movement/jump speed and same thing while spamming arrows. Moving speed while charging is half of the passive. Height of jump while charging is half of the passive.
Second, not every arrow while spamming would hit me as you trying to imagine it. Getting hit by it doesn't slows me either.
Third, nobody says about charged attacks. If you try to kill an archer with cleave then you an idiot. Hitting him with pounces will not slow me much either, and it still breaks his arrow-charging. Basically, if you do have control over your own actions, single hit on an archer means he's doomed. Cleave is needed only to fight other Knights or to break trough team Doors. I never use it for anything else. I'm adding it up and see that you, like most of the players of any games I've encountered lack any critical analysis capability.

From all I've read here I can only assume, that people really don't understand how to determine the game mechanic by observing the actual process. As result, people are getting severely warped idea about the game balance.

 

I would like question the reason why you wouldn't want warfare to be a uphill struggle knowing that the game you play is unscripted and manufactured to challenge your instincts. Yes let's face the facts here: if you have an intention to take down towers, than yes! It would be an essential to crate a strategy whether your list dictates the right formation or not. In short, numbers aren't the only think that dictate the game but also your team-based decisions and how many remaining units you have. I often question myself whether to move forward or not, which is why I don't get massacred as a builder as much or an archer who can get clear shots on enemy snipers.

To target your thoughts on the flow of battle, I could say the same for the knight class and even emphasize on the fact that it's counterpart would be enemy archers and other knights. It doesn't only just come down to "more this" or "more that" it really comes down to what the team really needs at that moment and this is one reason why I try mastering a variety of classes knowing each would be helpful in different situations.

I doubt we need a bomb tree if people are already bragging about +3 kills with one bomb.

You're forgetting bombs are still considered range attacks with AOE blast damage and occasionally, bombs can roll for a distance before detonating causing knights to be a frag-worthy class.

Similarly, the amount of skill for a knight above to spam bombs on an approaching archer on ground level would imply a bigger level of a skill? That's got me thinking. Yes I support the bi-competition which is why you reluctantly neglected the other counter which happens to be knights. The idea is that the archer will always be on the watch out for bombs when playing an offensive role similarly with an approaching knight. There are only inconsistencies when you halve the argument.

 

I'd like to preface this new post with a request. Could you please address my entire post (and the previous ones with all their points) as opposed to picking and choosing the areas where you feel you have the strongest case against me?

However, ask and you shall receive. I would rather the game be a fair and level playing field, where victories are dependent on the skill and co-operation of the team rather than stacking heavily on one type of class to garner an advantage. I'm fairly sure that most video games are made for amusement/fun rather than as a test of skill or to "challenge your instincts". Trying to swallow a tennis ball whole is really difficult, but that doesn't mean it's going to be much fun.

I agree with you on the fact that having at least some competency in all three classes increases your usefulness in games significantly. Being versatile and able to adapt to any situation is great. The fact of the matter is that large amounts of "turtling" archers do slow the game down. Especially in 0 - 0 unit situations with one team turtling. Many people actually end up leaving before the match finishes because they get bored. Large amounts of turtling archers do slow the game down. This is irrefutable. You even conceded it here:

Spoiler

Even forgetting that, the entire game comes down to "more this" or "more that". More units, more skill, more defences, more players, more shops and more archers.

And how exactly does one spam bombs? You can carry a maximum of 3. Using a bomb to kill a lone escaping archer with half a heart is hardly efficient. Arrows are expendable and spammable as they are easily obtained, bombs are not nearly as expendable due to their cost and carry limit. Actually aiming and throwing a bomb will always require more skill than clicking rhythmically to spam, and I have seen many archers escape death or damage at all by a quick change of direction in trees to avoid bomb explosions.

I said that one of two efficient counters to the archer are other archers and bombs. I still stand by that. I did not reluctantly neglect anything. By saying that you are misrepresenting my position. Bombless knights counter archers in close combat sure, but even then it's a gamble and only a very loose counter, as the spamming ability of archers allows them to kill lone knights one to one an unacceptable amount of the time. That brings up the question; What on earth was the ranged combat class doing in close combat anyway? Most of the spamming takes place as a panic mechanism or during the heat of battle where knight v knight combat is taking place. A simple panic reflex granting the ability to defeat the dedicated close combat class. Simply ridiculous.

TL;DR: Teamwork and balanced, skill based gameplay for an enjoyable experience for everyone.

I await your response eagerly.