The combat system

[DatOneGuy]

MM should be useful in combat, and should be feared as well. No one had a problem when MM was absolute shit and melee was all there was, now all of a sudden everyone is crying when it's all MM and melee sucks.

What MM does need is a better counter against it, AGI needs to work a lot better for this, or something needs to give in this scenario, but the damage is pretty fine considering the owrk involved in getting to those quality levels of it doing so, and the ability to block it easily.

However... things I see that make it unfair
1)It's teamup with melee makes BOTH of them OP, people are focusing on MM as being unfair because it's the new kid on the block, but the real problem here isn't that MM can hit you like that, it's that if you run to avoid being hit by MM you end up dying to 0def by the Melee, not really the Marksman. The Marksman is just to push you into the trap, if you don't take it, you get sniped, either way.
This is fixed by allowing the 0def to go away and towards something else, like perhaps that hit hitting AS IF you had 0def, but once he stops he should be back with his regular def, it's overpowered bullshit that will you get you PWNED by a misclick and is BIGGER than just this one problem.

2)You don't get 'in combat' until the first shot. This allows for someone strong enough to 1hko without being seen.

This can be avoided easily BY THE PLAYERS and does not necessarily need a fix. If your village has an external rim 45+ tiles in each direction you won't get sniped. If you build your village like AD with no external walls, prepare to be sniped easily by someone walking the streets.

[rye130]

but the damage is pretty fine considering the owrk involved in getting to those quality levels of it doing so, and the ability to block it easily

The damage is not fine when you remove melee fighters ability to hit that hard. 300 UA and it'd require a rather large amount of MC/Str/Ridiculous Sword to be able to deal 1.5k damage in hit, not to mention I think an archer can shoot before a Melee fighter can get the IP to attack.

[DatOneGuy]

Here's the difference:
Marksmanship - Capped in damage, capped in everything, by the quality you can reach.
Effective cap of around q200 trees (doubt you'll even hit 200, but that's around the cap) until we get q200+ bones from cows

Melee - No cap for defense depleting capabilities, and it hits a lot harder when you break the DEF finally.


Dodge/Shield should be part of blocking attacks, at some sort of rate, perhaps a 25% chance or something of straight up blocking, I don't know, but whatever, yes it should be more integrated, and stop being fully separate.

[Wolfang]

So if MM is so not-OP, why the heck is everyone, everywhere, complaining that it is?

All the big factions are concentrating on pumping out rangers nowadays instead of Melee/UA fighters...

[bitza]

the main issue that i have with marksman is, aside from damage being ridiculously high (it is, and anyone who argues differently has never experienced a good rbow hit)...

what makes marksman so much more dangerous than melee, is that the player can shoot from a distance, hidden under a rock (yes i know custom client xray vision but who has this on all the time). for the same effect, a melee fighter will generally have to be in view, or their agro range determined by call down the thunder, if agro'd far enough away the target will have a chance to escape. (although this can usually be mitigated with a bit of patience at a careless village who still uses keys and doesn't clear the land around their gate properly)

but the major issue that makes rbows so goddamn ridiculous is the fact that players can be shot THROUGH THEIR MOTHERFUCKING WALL. as i am at home farming or working around the village i think about this constantly and check for snipers all the goddamn time, even though we have no local enemies and scents never track back to headquarters. my village is double brickwall, with the second tier about 25-30 tiles out from the first, as an optimal defense for ram sieges and such. trees are chopped down and rocks runestoned for about a minimap in every direction. villagers are instructed to duck inside a house first if they are going to afk. i feel like this is not enough, though.

rbow in combat is fine the way it is, although i still feel the bow damage is imbalanced, and as datoneguy said i think that there needs to be a better defense mechanism against archery, so that people are not dropped in 1-2 arrows. the problem comes when farmy mcnoob is tending their carrots and steps away from the computer for a minute, coming back to find their character gone, even though they have put up a wall and thought they were safe.

would a change to archery mechanics, that it couldn't be shot thru a wall, make archery completely meaningless? or would it mean that a ranged character has to actually take a risk by exposing themself, meeting their opponent on a more level playing field, rather than hiding under a tree, one shot their prey, hop to a hearthvault and go back to their main.

[bitza]

part 2: (i dont want this to over shadow my previous statements)

how to be a colossal asshole in h&h:

smashing villages and stealing is all good fun, but the real damage is done to villages when they start losing characters. stuff is relatively easy to replace compared to the loss of players, many people quit after their first death, especially if it's done in a mickey mouse bullshit manner like this.

the ranger imbalance is further excasberated by the fact that a good ranger character is overall easier to build than a good melee character. you don't need thanes, and you don't need particularly good equipment other than the bow. the only stat you have to care about at all is perception, unless you want some agility to warp to other locations for easier griefing.

so, to begin, if you cannot make a q300 sling, buy one from sodom. they are buying bricks and linen and other simple things and this will not be difficult to do.

make a new char and farm, make teapots, chop trees, whatever until you get to 50ish marksman. then take your new sling and go hunting. if you can put a halfway decent bronze plate on the guy (by that i mean around q50ish which really isn't shit), you are now killing bears toe-to-toe with your sling.

if you are able to get your hands on occults, monocles, or the silk ranger gears these will help as well. with the gear you will have no problem grinding up to 300 marks or more, along with murder and vandalism, by hunting. it will go faster than you think. if you are in a productive village, you can put all farmers on max carrot cake production along with other per foods for the damage bonuses there. i'm not going to invoke the big M here, but it is also relevant in this discussion.

now, buy a good rbow. i think stickman is still selling them, he's a hell of a nice guy and i have traded with him extensively in the past. would always recommend him for any trade. i think stickman likes cheese and maybe you could work out a deal for stuff like carrot cake or piros, possibly.

meanwhile, back on your main, get up to 200 survival and hunt bears for skeletons to make arrows.

you are almost ready. the only step now is to push your murder alt's sliders back to tradition. you are now ready to grief the fuck out of anyone. literally, anyone. go to any village you want, hide under a tree outside their wall, wait for someone to afk or do some task where they are standing still for a length time (like grinding flour, using a wine press, etc).

once the job is done, go back to your village, drop off rbow and other gear and smash your hearthfire. the murder alt will of course be summoned and killed, but with tradition you can inherit 75% and gear up the descendant right away, hunt a little more and you will soon be ready for more lolz, with no danger to your main production line and "real" characters. for an added bonus, you now also have a decent ancestor.

i have no problems with giving away this information freely, because i am fairly certain that this is what all the big kids are doing. i hope that summing it all up here will show everyone the total clusterfuck of imbalance known as the ranger's bow.

[DatOneGuy]

This is not a problem with Ranger's Bows, you could do this with Melee as well, the only difference being having to get over their wall, which is simple enough. Ranger's bows limit on sight is only 45 tiles to see the person to hit them, 100 tiles is how far you can get and still shoot. So as long as your external wlals are 45+ tiles away, no one is touching you because they can't even SEE you, and warping in? They'd have to get past that 45 tile area in the middle.

Most of these problems are 'problems in general', not problems with ranger's.


Oh and if you're smart instead of killing the alt you'd move his HF some where far away, and kill him on your main (in a hearthvault or somewhere no one can get to the scents easily) so that you gain the LP yourself instead of giving it away.

[bitza]

maybe i have wandered too far off on my tangent, but the point i was trying to make was exactly that - the main problem with ranged being, it is far too easy to kill someone inside of a wall. yes, there are many cheap and dirty tricks to get through a brickwall, but they all have more of a time investment, and are more visible, than a guy hiding under a tree and waiting for an easy shot

Oh and if you're smart instead of killing the alt you'd move his HF some where far away, and kill him on your main (in a hearthvault or somewhere no one can get to the scents easily) so that you gain the LP yourself instead of giving it away.

and this part i was saving for myself..but oh well

[bitza]

also dog..its true that many of these problems are not limited to ranged combat, but the character system in general. but the point you have not addressed is the moratorium of trading on thanes and other melee gear, while rangers bows are still being openly sold. no two ways about it - a melee fighter will not be competitive without thanes and a steel sword.

the only expensive piece of merchandise that a sniper will need to invest in is the bow. everything else is more or less optional if you have a large production line of per food and a good table (fortunately tables have undergone a much needed nerf - definitely a step in the right direction)

[DatOneGuy]

also dog..its true that many of these problems are not limited to ranged combat, but the character system in general. but the point you have not addressed is the moratorium of trading on thanes and other melee gear, while rangers bows are still being openly sold. no two ways about it - a melee fighter will not be competitive without thanes and a steel sword.

the only expensive piece of merchandise that a sniper will need to invest in is the bow. everything else is more or less optional if you have a large production line of per food and a good table (fortunately tables have undergone a much needed nerf - definitely a step in the right direction)

You can speak with Koya and stickman about that. I've banned Ranger's Bows and sold Thane's. We'll never sell Ranger's Bows though ,we never intend to, the quality we can currently make surpasses all other factions, but selling even a q100 one is a really bad thing to do, just having it out there floating around.

It's true what you're saying that all you need is PER, although CON is very useful, AGI is useful for everyone if there are so many ranger's now, and you'll still want CHA because there are skills that will totally pwn you if you have 1 CHA, for advantage, that much for 2IP? Average person here has 200 CHA, I'd pwn anyone with 10 CHA easily, would it be a risk? Kinda, but if it looks like a toss-away ranger it's worth the risk for anywhere from 6~20 advantage (guaranteed full no matter what).

So if MM is so not-OP, why the heck is everyone, everywhere, complaining that it is?

All the big factions are concentrating on pumping out rangers nowadays instead of Melee/UA fighters...

These are all problems that are player-created, or part of a bigger problem, not a problem with MM.

Marksmanship doesn't need a nerf, it needs a change. It needs to stop standing aside of the regular combat system and join it better. The whole attack/def bar? Why the hell shouldn't that count for something? It would be a real punch in the dick for hunting, I 100% agree there, for SURE, but it's a real bitch when fighting actual people that they don't need to care about it other than for keeping up def. It'd balance out a bit just to change that