Making ranged more viable in combat

[NaoWhut]

When you pull off he's just gonna run away. The whole point is to stay out of melee.

I'm glad to hear you've never pvp'ed

moving on now? or would you like to jack off
more over the thoughts of your toy army that
you wont accept would die?

[Potjeh]

Constructive as ever.

[NaoWhut]

Semi Offtopic, @Potjeh~
My apologies for hating stupid people talking about combat
when they really have no experience and don't know what
works and what doesn't. In that scenario you gave your people
perfect reflexes, no panic when running, assumed only one
of your enemies would be close enough, and that they would'nt
be able to catch you. You also assumed your enemies would
stand still for 4+ seconds (time for you to aim). Your guy
would not only be dead in that time, he would still be moving
because he doesn't have the stats to tank even 2 guys, even
with equal maneuver weight as his opponents, one would break
his defence and the other would KO him, then your oppoenent
can back up, they wont be holding still. your archers can chose
to trap him in their own dead bodies and shoot him, sure.
but it would take more than 20 dead archers to kill 7 people
with no wall between them.

Oh right, RBows aim in 1 second, and all your guys would stop
just out of range of the enemies who became frozen in time
and are forever running towards your archers, while the first
assaulting melee'er is shot perfectly.

No. If you wanna talk about formulas and stuff, sure, but... your
scenario there is ridiculously stupid to any decent warrior in this
game.



More on Topic~
It's clear, though i'm not sure if said that the woodbows, in this
theory, would have a reduced % penetration than ranger's bow,
combined with per against agi, lower damage n all, the chances
of using woodbows against a well armored opponent seem to be
needing a large, unseen group of archers all firing instantaneously
and hitting. Not very likely, so it would be safe.

the only thing i can really be bothered about by that penetration
thing is, in ranged combat you only get one shot, if it doesn't KO
them, they get away. with this addition you said it could take 4-5
shots to kill an opponent, and if they move your'e screwed for
aiming. It would be cool to have little groups in a faction's army
that are assigned to different tasks, then archers with their pen
would have a use, and probably take pride in their position.

with this middle ground, i think it could make for rather interesting
endgame fights, but in the case of sieges we would find the same
empty walls with the same alt waves =\

[swarls]

i'm for a simple 10% penetration on bows.
most of you ppl seem to forget that ranged damage is scaled by per vs agi.
high scale fighters easily hit 400 agi, so it'd take the archer 800 perc to do a maxhit.
the low tier fighters (and fully armored crafter) might get hit for max, but it will still take 3+ shots to kill one.
everything else is fresh game with or without penetration...

to pots and naos discussion:
it is easily possible to aim with a wbow in 3-4sec to half on moving targets.
still i'm on naos side, the archers might kill one, but that will give the fighters enough time to take out 2-3 of them and make the rest run like chicken.

[NaoWhut]

i'm for a simple 10% penetration on bows.
most of you ppl seem to forget that ranged damage is scaled by per vs agi.
high scale fighters easily hit 400 agi, so it'd take the archer 800 perc to do a maxhit.
the low tier fighters (and fully armored crafter) might get hit for max, but it will still take 3+ shots to kill one.
everything else is fresh game with or without penetration...

to pots and naos discussion:
it is easily possible to aim with a wbow in 3-4sec to half on moving targets.
still i'm on naos side, the archers might kill one, but that will give the fighters enough time to take out 2-3 of them and make the rest run like chicken.

but then max for bows would be 130 through armor with
a high ql ranger bow....

Also, it would be moving target aiming on a moving target,
if the archers stopped they'd end up dying

[swarls]

still wont kill anybody other then fresh spawned alts in 1 shot.
i dont see how you can get 3 shots other then being stupid (with public radar getting sniped counts to this too) or getting ganked and killed anyway.
only risk are 3 archers focus fireing you, but then again they could be fighters and just gank you.

[0000k1]

This thread is the end result of a conversation over skype between me, Noaah, Patchouli Knowledge and xXGhostxX.

Before I get started, I've done a search and come up with 1 thread Nao made back in April, which was on the same track except the the core principals to his changes were different. Please excuse me if it was more reasonable for me to post this within that thread, instead of it's own separate one.

The Problem
Ranged combat is an on and off thing in PvP, with the main issue being that it either does a lot, or none, with no ground in between. The effectiveness of ranged combat is measured by if the opposing player has or does not have armor equipped. In engagements between 2 parties of high-end players, range has little to no purpose. Example being that a combo of a Q125 rbow and Q150 bone arrows wouldn't harm someone with armor equivalent in level which as 1500+ AC, in combination with 600+ hp.

What Can Ideally be Changed
Creating the possibility for a middle ground. A way of damage being dealt scaling between different tiers of AC, so it doesn't become a hit or miss thing. In other words, make it so it isn't some flat damage, since tweaking straight numbers doesn't scale in between different "tiers" of fighting.

The Solution
Armor Penetration.
How Armor Penetration is implemented is where it gets interesting. Going with that same model of someone using a Q125 rbow and Q150 bone arrows, full martial against someone with 1500AC, and around 600 hp.

A Quality 125 Ranger's Bow deals a base hit of 1060 damage, or 1272 at full martial.
A Quality 150 Bone Arrow adds an extra 77 damage, 92 at full martial.
Total: 1137 damage, or 1364 damage at full martial.

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
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)

Conclusion
►Ranged combat needs importance in PvP
►It's either overly powerful or useless
►Percentage Based Armor Penetration does this
►2 possible answers, 1 based on the arrow quality, 1 balanced

What I Ask of You, The Reader
►Create a discussion: raise any questions or concerns you have with a reply! This is by no means a perfect idea, your feedback is needed.
►Keep on-topic: Nobody wants another thread derailed, think of the relevancy of your post before submitting it.
►Be civil: There is no need for aggression, especially in the Critiques & Ideas section.
►Have fun with it: If you aren't, politely excuse yourself from the discussion.

Have a nice day.

I like this idea because I got killed by a fresh account with metal armor and I kept hitting him 0 and I have 80 mm and 30 Perception. well i did.... got killed by him... he trapped me in a house and slowly killed me.... He kept hitting me like 10 by punching me and I kept hitting him 0 qith a bow and bear arrows...

[bmjclark]

Why wouldnt you punch him back =\

[dra6o0n]

20 Archers? So you mean like 20 players or like 4 players with 5 bots each?

As for armors, so apply a flat damage every time the damage is blocked should be considered?

So in pvp if someone has a metal armor and a bunch of noobs is going to mob him, he'll start taking 1 shp damage at a time? Better than 0 right?

[Potjeh]

My apologies for hating stupid people talking about combat
when they really have no experience and don't know what
works and what doesn't.

I guess I must've dreamt all the fights I've been in then. But really, just drop that goddamn "I'm the ultimate authority on PvP" attitude. You're the best only because everyone who was any good quit. Well, actually, Patchouli didn't, so I guess you're not definitely the best after all. And I guess there's also other Ainran guys, many of which could certainly give you a run for your money.

In that scenario you gave your people
perfect reflexes, no panic when running, assumed only one
of your enemies would be close enough, and that they would'nt
be able to catch you.

It's called client with pathfinding. Such a client could also be made to shoot without stopping at all, so the archer could fire off a whole quiver (albeit slowly) without the melee guy being able to use anything on him other than Thunder.

You also assumed your enemies would
stand still for 4+ seconds (time for you to aim).

No I don't. You can get aim with troll hide wbow even if the target is moving.

Your guy would not only be dead in that time, he would still be moving
because he doesn't have the stats to tank even 2 guys

Says who? They can have all the UA they want, since there's a rather low limit to how much they need to invest in MM.

even with equal maneuver weight as his opponents, one would break
his defence and the other would KO him, then your oppoenent
can back up, they wont be holding still.

In the time it takes to do that you'll be shot 50 times.

but it would take more than 20 dead archers to kill 7 people
with no wall between them.

They'd kill 3 on approach alone.