[428] General Archer Discussion

I just playd a long session with the archer in RDM. Server had 6-12 players throughout with standard maps and I would always be switching to balance out the teams. I came out with 2.5ish KD and averaged about 2-3 kills per match playing fairly agressively. They definitely weren't the best of players but conversely I'm not the best of archers either.

The archer isn't crippled. It's still a very viable choice in RDM even without impregnable towers to camp in. Rather than providing covering fire one needs to really focus on sneaking in shots- I found having to learn to cancel shots with right click to be really useful as I had to play to the charge ramp more.

One thing that bugs me though is that fully charge shots have such a narrow ramp and combined with the gimped jump it's often hard to negotiate yourself into position for the shot.

What I would like to see:
- The ability to hold full charge for a full two seconds.
- The ability to jump two tiles up while charging.

 

How about

Gray/Grey: .50 damage
Yellow: 1 damage
Red: 1.50 damage
Blue: 2.00 damage

Honestly, I feel that since we've been slowed down by a landslide we should be rewarded by taking slow and steady shots that hit the target. At least the archer still has a chance to defend his/herself against rushing knights and builders at shotgun range.

 

Yeah .25 is a pittance and even .5 is easily tankable. With the current fire rate .5 is weak enough.

But 2 damage is far too much even for a really long charge. We had 2 damage arrows once and it was awful. The problem with 2 damage is it's fairly easy to spam and randomly instakill other archers which is just not fun. It won't matter that much vs knights and workers as you'll only be using this super charge at long range- and 1.5 2 shots at that distance anyways.

I think it would be fair to make fire arrows with 2 damage as expensive stall breakers, but instakill shafts you can pick off trees? As I was saying that's more a nerf to archers than anything else.

One significant thing that the fire rate change did was make it impossible to do the ful charge -> weak charge combo to get through shielding knights. I think a a possible fix would be to make the shield break last longer, but only work at close range. This gives archers a good tool against knights but also stops the "impassable hail of arrows" effect.

 

Spoiler: Quote by Contrary

~Next time Snip or spoiler long quotes, Killatron

Or we can make it in a way that archers loose 1.5 hearts to the damage while knights are affected by the other damage frame which would be 2.

Here's why your argument is incredibly lackluster: you put words such as support and defensive beside it. In Kag, everyone switches their role constantly depending on the situation and scenario at the brink of battle. If a group of knights choose to move forward, a builder has his/her chance to build an offensive tower behind the upcoming force. Similarly, an archer can aid his/her group by moving forward, climbing onto a tree, and snipe the enemy knights and that would be playing offensively as opposed to camping in a tower. Furthermore, I'm sure one has witness a knight playing a support role by shielding catapults and helping his/her fellow archers as well.

We should steer people away from using segregating classes from using words like support, defensive and offensive because every class can do all three things in very different ways and instead, encourage people to stick to simpler and less subject terms like melee and range. Sadly, it seems that people in this game value teamwork as the inferior part of this game and I guess people detest archers/knights/builders in groups because they have a dire complex of feeling that they should overpower a group that fit their situation at an advantageous point.

 

God, the increased draw time sucks, hahaha I was so confused trying to shoot knights close. I missed being an ninja jumping over knights and raining arrows on them, trying to cut me down it's how I always played jumping through trees, now I have to go back to being an archer ha. Though how it did 1 heart, I felt that it was too strong especially against newer players.

 

I'm sure the creators do their best to make fair classes, but it is not now. If the attack time is increased for archers, why not for builders and especially knights? They beat faster.
I do not know how English speakers call it, 'bomb jumping' ? With one bomb, they can easily do a +5 for a very great distance, it's powerful and leaves no hope. Besides their jumps are very good for climbing.

Knights and builders can easily be offensive or defensive with their armor or stones, but we can only pretend to be dead :/ I tried just now behind corpses ... unless the enemy is totally stupid, he just needs to move the cursor on us to see our lives ^ ^

It is impossible now to defend constructions of our team. You know when enemies builders are running to block the spikes'traps and grief towers by building a protective wall. When we fall, after a collapse and we're trying to do a lagger with arrows, it's more difficult, especially if enemies are close and the new bug of arrows is still present.
But then, for me, the most frustrating thing is not being able to kill enemies by jumping on trees, even if a builder has just half life!
Time to load, we're already dead. Builders know it, and do not hesitate to kill archers, they could not retaliate.

Really, you should let us the rain of arrows, but you could perhaps limit the number possible (I never take more than 50 arrows).
Or if you leave this time, you should make faster the full loading time, for 1.5 heart.
Thank You ;)
Ivy

 

I'm sure it's been reported, but I could not find it posted. An archer's first draw gets stuck on 1 grey dot, then the arrow falls straight down gracefully as rain. A hotfix for that would be appreciated ;)

 

Thanks for removing arrow spamming it's cool

 

yeah that glitch is a b*tch,cost my team 3 towers allready because I coud not shoot incomming keg kamikaze in time.

 

Does anyone understand how to make arrows skip along the water? I've tried all different levels of charge, and multiple angles, but my endeavours seem to be fruitless. Although, I have noticed that while the arrow which collides with the water stops and sinks, a single particle skips in the direction which an arrow should, and at the same speed as the fired arrow. I think that the arrow is actually bouncing in that trajectory, but as a ghosted entity, whilst clientside; the arrow sinks.

 

I thought it was a feature added to reduce arrow spamming.

 

Yes, they have slowed down the draw time of an archer to reduce spam, but there is a glitch with this. When charging the bow, it sometimes just gets stuck on one dot of charge not doing anything.

 

Why do you fall from trees now?

 

One way to test this Eggnogg, without using a meat shield would be with a catapult. Then you could see when it takes damage. I don't have access to water though, so I can't test it myself. :p
</br>--- merged: Jun 11, 2012 10:28 PM ---</br>
Faster server browser update . . . Build 420 has been released.

Spoiler: Build 420 Changelog

- server browser now uses API and threaded calls
- more colors in server preview minimap in server browser
- many server browser bugs fixed
- made arrows not damage at minimum velocity under water
- made arrows skip higher
- dirt no longer created for infinite support
- fixed dropping mats working always -> allowing inf mats on startup

 

I've noticed that when you try to knock archers out of trees, they cease to fall the entire way, to the ground. The only way to get them out of a tree is to jab spam it. (At least on the five or so servers that I play on)

 

Tried it. If the archer falls all the way to the ground - Your statement is true!
Yes I was wrong about all that, in build 415 my statement was true, yours not.