Making ranged more viable in combat

[DeadlyPencil]

I like the idea of arrow penitration damage, but i dont know if 100% is the right number. people would be doing 90+ damage a hit @ max damage. lower might be better. at 100% you might be able to kill a fighter 1 on 1 in melee combat.

The numbers given were for high level fighting in which fighters are expected to have over 600 health, and it was only 100% of arrow damage, not bow damage so 1 shotting wouldn't be an issue.

iam not sure what your trying to say, people would concider me a high level fighter and people already have the equipment to do 90+ damage arrow damage and people already have over 600 HP. A bowman will hit max damage eat shot, and it wouldn't be good for the game to have the possibility of a bowman killing a melee fighter in melee with his bow. doing 90+ damage is to much, you can let off shots to quickly before they cant get the intensity up.

if they added something like if your hit with a melee attack while aiming you have 0% defence (just like being hit while moving), then i would be all for 100% arrow penitration.

[ApocalypsePlease]

What about considering the bigger picture, like the low levels, the middle, and the highs?

When you out gear someone your bow already outdoes their AC, this addition of penetration doesn't somehow make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Generally the damage from the bow and arrows are already high

Not when with equal footing on both sides, swords deal a lot more damage, and armor has higher AC than the bow's damage. Bows have below average damage when fighting (disregard the damage dealt by UA, as UA has 30% penetration so it doesn't need to overcome AC)

so why not separate it into a new skill for ranged?

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Adding in more skills doesn't add to the game. Although your idea isn't bad, it would make "shoot" terribly useless in any given PvP situation, as "support shot" would outclass it.

Also support shot would need deal around the same penetration damage as the numbers given in the OP or else it would be unbalanced as well as not sticking to the concept of supportive fire. All the damage which doesn't penetrate is highly irrelevant.

-the last 3 paragraphs in the post-

I really don't want to sound offensive, but either I am misunderstanding this, or you don't know how ranged damage is calculated. Marksmanship has no effect on the damage dealt by bows, only the aiming speed. Also Perception doesn't give bonus damage, it in combination with the agility of the target determines the minimum damage.

oiam not sure what your trying to say, people would concider me a high level fighter and people already have the equipment to do 90+ damage arrow damage and people already have over 600 HP. A bowman will hit max damage eat shot, and it wouldn't be good for the game to have the possibility of a bowman killing a melee fighter in melee with his bow. doing 90+ damage is to much, you can let off shots to quickly before they cant get the intensity up.

Rbows still take considerable time to aim, especially if the fighter consistently moves around when waiting for cooldowns to finish. This should not be an issue whatsoever.

if they added something like if your hit with a melee attack while aiming you have 0% defence (just like being hit while moving), then i would be all for 100% arrow penitration.

This is not a bad idea, but making the marksman have 0 defensive weight is too much, maybe around 75-50% of original defensive weight. That should however be in it's own post as it isn't relevant to the suggestion in the OP.

Thanks guys, the input is appreciated.

[MrBunzy]

Honestly ranged doesn't need to be more viable in combat with the current system. There really is no such thing as a ranged fighter atm, because the most you need to invest into marksmanship is 300. R-bows are more like accessories... some fighters choose to carry swords to finish people off faster and some choose to carry bows for sniping noobs and scouting alts. Either way the investment in marksmanship or melee combat is negligible. With the amount of lp on end game characters getting to 300 mm to use a bow really isn't hard, and you can still raise your uac to be as high as regular fighters. If mm is going to be viable for late game pvp there needs to be a reason to raise mm past 300, maybe there could be a direct relationship between marksmanship and armor penetration? But yeah, bows are fine as is imo.

[Potjeh]

Penetration = sqrt(marksmanship/manoeuvre weight) * base penetration?

[ApocalypsePlease]

Honestly ranged doesn't need to be more viable in combat with the current system. There really is no such thing as a ranged fighter atm, because the most you need to invest into marksmanship is 300. R-bows are more like accessories... some fighters choose to carry swords to finish people off faster and some choose to carry bows for sniping noobs and scouting alts. Either way the investment in marksmanship or melee combat is negligible. With the amount of lp on end game characters getting to 300 mm to use a bow really isn't hard, and you can still raise your uac to be as high as regular fighters. If mm is going to be viable for late game pvp there needs to be a reason to raise mm past 300, maybe there could be a direct relationship between marksmanship and armor penetration? But yeah, bows are fine as is imo.

You're neglecting needing to get your perception up to hit max hits consistently. Also your point about the low investment amount can go for any combat style, as currently mobile fighting makes UA and MC more skill based than stat based.
The idea of penetration being based off marksmanship is a good one, however the implementation of it wouldn't be easy, since of trying to keep it balanced. This also does not keep to making this change affect all levels of combat. Scaling is key. Marksmanship based penetration scales poorly, because the damage that penetrates scales exponentially (more percentage penetration * more damage from increase in quality).

[NaoWhut]

Possible ways to implement penetration:
There were 2 major ideas to how ranged penetration could work:
1. The damage arrows deal have full penetration, only when shot from a ranger's bow
( #1 ) 2. There is a base penetration of all damage, combined with a high percentage of arrow penetration

In Depth
Note: All calculations are assuming max damage
1. This concept surrounds the idea that when using a ranger's bow, the damage the arrow deals has a 100% bypass of all armor class.
With the numbers above, 72 of 1137 damage would bypass (8 hits to knock out), or 92 of 1364 (7 hits to knock out)
Another important aspect of this idea is that it adds emphasis to maximizing the use for higher quality arrows, instead of the primary use being making sure they don't cap the EML

2. This concept still puts effort on the ranger's bow still mattering, giving 5% penetration to bow damage, and 80% penetration to arrow damage.
With the numbers above, 114 damage would bypass (6 hits to knock out), or 137 of 1364 (5 hits to knock out)
The thing to note here is that the damage is mostly split between the ranger's bow quality and the arrow quality.
Out of the 114 damage, 53 was from the bow, 61 from the arrow
Out of the 137 damage, 63.6 was from the bow, 73.6 from the arrow (they get rounded down to 137)

Have a nice day.

( #1 ) First off, i'm curious there, does that mean
i could send 10 archers with wooden bows up and
have each shooting for about 70-80 damage based
on their perception? if so i personally like the first
suggestion far more, sheerly because the EML or
whatever it's called wouldn't decrease for weapons
and make wooden bows fast, 70 damage repeaters.
because around endgame (300 mm 150 arrows+) you
can easily hit someone with a wooden bow while theyr'e
moving.

( #2 ) For the first solution of yours, it seems you
would be constantly dancing around while anyone
with a ranger's bow is in sight ( With beacons like
you see cowards using... Vigilance... it's clear that'd
be easy to spot them, because you could make it
so that the ranger's bow skin is more noticeable)
and if you ever happened to get knicked by a sniping
RBower... you'd just rush inside a house and never
be seen by the light of day for the remainder of the
assault, with alts of yours being your eyes.
~ I don't like that, so i'mma suggest that if you hit
someone, or something, with an arrow, stone or other
form of undiscovered ammunition... They are slowed.
Short or long, the duration of the slow would aid in
other archers taking a bear or human down without
everyone's bar going to 0 the second it sees a drop of
red. (The slow could force crawl speed for 2-3 seconds
even and you'd gain a deadly respect for archers)

(Edit: i mean when hit and damaged of course, or when
hit and not damaged a lesser effect occurs, since you
know... most people dont take three arrows while
sprinting and keep going, but if they clang against their
armor, i can see them stopping for a sec or at least
feeling the recoil and a little daze... perhaps if the
lesser buff were a % chance to occur?)



I look forward to range combat becoming as possibly
in depth as Brawls

[Vigilance]

I saw my name and have no idea what you're talking about.

[stickman]

I dont like your calculations... "theoretical soldier's sword will be Q125"

did anyone even get a sword that high last world? maybe a single person in the entire game had a sword that good. everyone else had 90-110. last world i got a q107 sword and that was a spiraled sword using one of pande's best blocks and using their anvil...

I also dont agree with 484 strength (mid tier fighters) to 1000 strength (top tier fighters). Heck I had 80 million LP last map and I only had 400 str. I guess im not even a mid teir fighter...

how many people had over 1000 str last map? like 2 or 3? and how many had palibashing str? maybe 10+?


I dont think trying to balance this game based on .5% of the player base does any good. If arrows dealt full penetration then noobs with only 100-200 HP will die in 2 shots even if they were wearing armour.

If people punching throught armour only deals 30-50 damage why should bows deal 100+ through the armour... if we use your examples... then some top tier fighter with 1000 str and a ranger bow... you have two choices try to dance infront of him and possible get 1 hit KO by a nice knock your teeth out.. or sit and take 100+ penetration damage every second or two.

[dra6o0n]

A 'normal' player, or a average player, without the use of botting to boost the stats, would most likely be half of what I see suggested in penetration and damage.

Why not use distance and velocity to consider penetration of arrows?

Give bows and rbows a ranged distance that gives the shot the 'perfect' level of penetration?

Of course, sniping isn't a good area to put it, because everyone would then snipe with a bow to use 100% penetration... It'd have to be much closer in around the mid range.

The hypothesis is that as the arrow flies, it creates drag and thus loses velocity, so the further it flies, the less likely it's able to penetrate a target's armor.

So:

If a bow's [velocity] is x distance from the user, then at point is a 100% [armor piercing] chance.

I use chance because a 100% chance to pierce armors every time seems off if the marksmanship skill is high enough to shoot enough arrows at that target.

So if the user is at the right distance, the chance to pierce the target increases to 100%. The minimum chance to pierce the target's armor is 20%.

Piercing of armor can be determines by the quality of the bow and arrow I guess, so doesn't combine stats to pierce a target.

Code: Select all

Piercing range
•20%
◘40%
○100%


     20%       100%     20%
     ↓           ↓       ↓
Bow  ••••••••••◘◘○◘◘••••••

     20%          100%  20%
     ↓             ↓     ↓
rBow ••••••••••••◘◘○◘◘••••



So if a newbie or a normal player with the right knowledge shoots a bow and arrow at a highly skilled target, at the right distance, it will give a ~100% penetration with penetration damage based on the quality of the weapon...

Maybe to give everyone a reason to aim for the 100% piercing distance, a 'status' effect can be applied when you manage to pull it off...

Possible debuffs:
- Arrow to the knee (Yeah I know its a skyrim meme) *Slows the target down to a crawl speed for {x} seconds*
- Blood loss *target loses {x}SHP/sec over time for {x} seconds*
- Cripple *target's muscle weakens for {x} seconds and stats are dropped in halved*
- Wound *target loses a {x} amount of hhp*

[NaoWhut]

I dont like your calculations... "theoretical soldier's sword will be Q125"

did anyone even get a sword that high last world? maybe a single person in the entire game had a sword that good. everyone else had 90-110. last world i got a q107 sword and that was a spiraled sword using one of pande's best blocks and using their anvil...

I also dont agree with 484 strength (mid tier fighters) to 1000 strength (top tier fighters). Heck I had 80 million LP last map and I only had 400 str. I guess im not even a mid teir fighter...

how many people had over 1000 str last map? like 2 or 3? and how many had palibashing str? maybe 10+?


I dont think trying to balance this game based on .5% of the player base does any good. If arrows dealt full penetration then noobs with only 100-200 HP will die in 2 shots even if they were wearing armour.

If people punching throught armour only deals 30-50 damage why should bows deal 100+ through the armour... if we use your examples... then some top tier fighter with 1000 str and a ranger bow... you have two choices try to dance infront of him and possible get 1 hit KO by a nice knock your teeth out.. or sit and take 100+ penetration damage every second or two.

I was able to put like 700 str into my fighter last
world, starting from i think 150 or something, all
on stolen cheese, and almost everyone in ainran
core as a palibasher, i stole a ql 115 sword from
some russian i killed...

Also.. you realize, any attack made against an archer
or hit by range cancels their aim?

I didnt read anything about 125 ss, but i don't think
that really matters, ql 125 ranger's bows were made
and distributed. Maybe not in panda, but panda was
not the greatest faction of that world...

Also, if they shoot at you, they lose their attack bar,
so they can't recover defense very easily, so they'll
die pretty fast if they shoot you even twice.


Noobs will die. The playerbase effected by combat is...
The entire playerbase!! the playerbase that would like
to be effective for once, late game? The late game archers;
who are not random noobs with ql 30 wood bows and ql 10
bronze plates, they're the people with ql 120 ranger's bows
that watch red 0's fly up from their enemies.

I personally hit 3000 last world with a stab... and i only
ate what i could steal...

ql 30 ranger's bow. Hard to aim, but would have arrow
pen if you can ever get a lock, higher ql, easier to aim
and he was only using high ql theoretically to show the
numbers... for late game.

Sorry if i sound rude, really dont mean to