Comments on April patch

[iza]

Scattershot Fix
For some time it’s been possible, at very low levels of Bow, Crossbow and Thrown Weapons skill, to have a “critical failure”. In these cases, your shot would go “wild” and veer far off target. These days it’s only seen frequently on low-level Drudges that use Thrown Weapons.

This code only impacted very low-level characters and creatures, but it was checked on each and every missile attack. This was a small but non-negligible impact on server performance, so we’ve removed it. This should not impact the vast majority of ranged weapons players.
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I'm so sad they upgraded all the damage on "secondary weapons" but once again they have not even touched the archer pvp issue.
Well spent time i tell ya, Fix some obscure bug that has only been an issue maybe once in the four years i've played this game......yet ignore the 15 "plz help archer in pvp threads on the pvp board" thx thx so much

yet another happy turbine customer
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i'm just kidding myself anyway thinking that a dev might read this

[Ibn]

We've got several plans for May to help Archers in PvP, which we announced last week.

[Yew Wan Sum]

The question is, did you read and take into account the volume of feedback on this topic? The magnitude of your changes are insufficient, even as a starting point. 75% acc at min is the lowest place to start, other wise we end up with a situation like the imbued armor, where it never gets fixed.

[iza]

The "magic absorbing imbue", (of course) I know nothing about how its going to work except it’s a loot imbue.

Just the fact that I have to imbue a droppable loot bow and a sword guy goes on a simple 30 min quest to get his "magic absorbing item" already makes me think it’s a bad idea.
Here is why...

a. I can drop my "magic absorbing bow". Aegis is no drop

b. Unless the imbue also adds humanslayer then the bow is worthless to start with. An un ARed un humanslayer bow is absolutely worthless in pvp. (AR is about worthless)

c. The aegis takes 30 min to get, for the bow I would have to collect all the salvage then hope to land it on a bow that is goina have to be tinked to do any damage.

So why would it be balanced. Mages and melee's pk equipment are quest items and no drop. But this change would make archer's (the already lesser class) primary pk weapon droppable.

If you where refering to some other change for archers in pvp im sorry for the rant ibn, but i do read all the forums and the dev notes and letter to players and i saw no other mention of a update to archer pvp wise.

Why not just push the mod up to 125% on the weeping. It makes sense it would be realitive to the current sword damage on the weeping. (and it wouldnt be that hard to adjust it didnt take you but 3 week to change it back from 130 to 98%)

LOL you answered (i guess im yee of lil faith)

[Seriphyn]

Send your pvp expert out to collect data again! I'm sure it will be accurate, again.

Simply put, watch an archer fight against a mage fast casting. It's so friggen hard to hit them with a missile weapon. You're realistically getting off one or two arrows per cast.

On my level 140 archer, I hit for 35-40 in most cases. Which means I have to hit 10 times, consequtively, in many cases on the pvp scene with a mage. Does that sound feasable, while I have to be in a mages face while he fast casts and even then being point blank miss?

You guys post happy go lucky solutions, but yet again I don't think you fully understand the problem. Making me hit because my arrow is "twice" as wide means very little when my arrows are flying at crazy directions becuase of the fast cast dance. It does very little for me to shoot my arrows as arcs when they dodge wars, arcs, with their little fast cast patterns.

Doesn't your pvp expert explain these things to you? I mean, after he's 126! and is a BM with missile and healing, wow.

[Virindi Clown]

I have posted many times well thought out changes for archers that should work, and if anything, are an extremely good starting point. It would help PvM too, because you wouldn't see so many weird choppy things and strange misses. The game's animation and mechanics are far too dirty to look good to new players, which should be a big enough priority. Please heed my advice and the outcry of players.

The aegis thing is a horrible idea, unless it is a secondary imbue. Along with that, loot weapons must increase in imbue power to match weeping weapons, at which point the weeping weapons could be nerfed. That needs to be done anyways, because loot should always be better than no-drop quest items.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but it would also be a good idea to keep archers from stopping, arming an arrow and then firing after moving. It takes too long and locks you up, especially with crossbow.

[iza]

Agreed.

[Zephon__MT]

I didnt notice a change in the amount i hit mages with the increase of the arrow size.

[iza]

Well i dont think it starts till next mounth man but still.... its not goina be enough i wish they would just up the damage this is a temp fix and after tehy do it they wont touch the issue again for another year lol

[Orion]

Let's look at hard numbers.

We'll look at a min coordiantion and quickness player with maxed trained missile defense vs. an archer character with a buffed skill of

MISSILE DEFENSE DUDE
Base 288
Buffed 347 (This includes level 7 spells for Coord/Quick/MissileD)
Uber Buff 368 (Add the respective majors to the mix)


BOW DUDE:

Base Coordination 250
Base Bow 325
Buffed 385 (Level 7 buffs to Coord/Bow)
Uber Buff 407 (Respective majors)

First, the difference in experience expenditure is massive. In order to enjoy that missile defense I have 2 attributes maxed out, and one skill maxed out. We know that there are many players that have maxed skills and attributes on all servers. However, the expenditure for the Archer Dude is 150 from the starting 100 coordination and 200 levels of bow skill. That is a boatload and a half of xp.

What we need to look at now is the 50/50 line Where does Missile Defense Dude enjoy that margin of evasion that is 50/50?

At Uber buffed levels, Bow Dude needs a 368 bow skill is needed to 50/50 the defender. Roughly 90% of the bow users skill.

At Buffed levels, Bow Dude needs a 347 bow skill is needed to 50/50 the defender. Roughly 85% of the bow users skill.

At base level, Bow Dude needs a 288 bow skill is needed to 50/50 the defender. Roughly 70% of the bow users skill.

At 60% skill, Bow Dude's bow skill is at 244, while uber buffed. This is well under the 50/50 margin, however Bow Dude is much lower level than the Missile Defende Dude, above.

So, what numbers are we looking at?

We're looking at a more acceptable base of 198 for the defender, with buffs driving them to 254 and majors dropping them around 271. This seems a lot more reasonable. The bow user above would then have a greater chance to strike their opponent more often.

Remember that the changes to accuracy bar are not set in stone, we're looking at the numbers, the feel during play and testing those changes with the arrow size increase to make sure that we have things where we want them.

This is not a quick fix, it's a calculated fix. We need to be sure that we are comfortable with the changes before we send them off.

With the changes to the accuracy bar, archers should be able to drop their accuracy and afford themselves an increase in firing time while keeping a greater portion of their skill. We hope by coupling this change with the arrow size, we can increase the regularity at which an arrow strikes moving targets, without removing the ability to manually dodge missile attacks.

[KirillHuntersun]

Um.

Good spotting on the numbers, Orion. Those match both my mage's MissileD at 90, and my archer's Bow skill at 92 give or take a few points.

However, you're missing something. It's something that several people have been trying to explain for a while, yet doesn't seem to get across.

If I, as an archer, shoot at a mage who is using zxc to twitch and throw off my tracking, then my arrows have a solid chance of flying some 30 degrees off target to either side, depending on what the target's doing at the point of release. You can increase the physics size of the arrow until it's easily half a meter in diameter, and it will do absolutely NOTHING to assist in the PvP effectiveness of an archer, because a good half the arrows you fire at a twitching target won't even land anywhere near the target. If there happened to be a lot of chickens and rabbits nearby, you'd be far more likely to land an arrow on one of them than to hit a twitching target, and the size of the arrow is irrelevant to that.

I think that's what's got most folks annoyed by this. I don't see anyone really complaining that much about the slider change, except that they'd rather see maybe the top side stay 100-150 and see the bottom side go 75-100, but even that won't do much except for making those with MissileD that took it solely for PvP complain about wasted skill credits. They'll just start twitching too, and that means that we'll be back to flinging arrows out everywhere across a 60-degree frontal arc or more.

[Anihc]

But it is easy to dodge war too. That comes down to player skill.

Just like Orion said "without removing the ability to manually dodge missile attacks."

The intent is to allow people to move and not be hit. Smae with war same with melee, you must move a little farther to avoid melee I think but still that is the intent.

This is a role playing game. In the real world would you stand in the middle of town and shoot arrows at a mage if a mage could hit you just as easy? No. You would dodge and turn and duck for cover (of course this implies magic could happen only because I am trying to illustrate a "life" and "death" issue even a gun against a gun you stand a chance to dodge and miss getting hit IRL).

If they get the "characters skills" adjusted so everyone has a fair 50/50 chance then dodging is still going to effect you. Just like they intend.

That is what you are trying to say Orion right?

[Orion]

Yes Anihc, that is what I was trying to say.

[Xantcha]

I think the idea is to keep the ability to dodge while getting rid of twitch dodging, which takes advantage of how pathing works. A similar situation was the introduction of arcs to get rid of the same twitching technique to dodge bolts. Perhaps some kind of arc-like arrows with slightly slower firing speed?

[KirillHuntersun]

Xantcha pretty much nailed what I was getting at.

It IS impossible to use a twitch attack to throw War off, because you don't know whether the war bolt that's coming is a Bolt or an Arc until it's cast.

With archery, as soon as you see that bow (or, more improbably, crossbow) come out into the characters hand, a well-practiced mage can start twitching and MAYBE take an arrow each time he has to pause to start a new cast at best. Otherwise, the rest of the time he's sending an archer's arrows over a 60-degree arc every time, because he KNOWS that twitching always works 100% of the time with archery. The archer has no such advantage, because if he tries to twitch-dodge (which is infinitely harder to do while actively firing a bow) the mage can just toss an arc, which will hit the archer anyhow.

These options MAY work as long as there's an addition of a selectable option on the attack panel for an area-attack method of fire similar to an arc introduced. In fact, they'd probably solve the majority of the problem. But like any 3-legged stool, if one of the three legs is missing, the entire thing falls over, and right now this is two legs that sound suspiciously like a replacement for the third leg that was mentioned as an option.

An archer's target can ALWAYS twitch to throw off their attacker and it will ALWAYS work. A mage's target cannot do that. Until such time as the same can be said of archery, there will continue to be an issue, and archers will continue to be the red-headed stepchild of AC's PvP system.

[Anihc]

I think that is why they increased the arrow head size. :)

!. I would expect the war bolt to hit me cause it is much bigger.
2. I would expect a small side step to maybe avoid the arrow.

Distance from weapon to target is going to determine how much you would miss. Tragectory fall etc.

I think they are trying very hard to make sure it is as even as it can be. Nothing is pefect either. I see many mages get taken out by bow toons and vice-versa.

Personnaly I think they should get it as close to 50/50 and leave it at that. It will never be perfect and it shouldn't be expected to be. I also think they do a great job at listening to everyone on the issues and take that back to help improve the systems. I also think they ask too much. Sometimes, and we are starting to see it, they have a great idea or need to make changes that players do not like and they proceed anyway. They should do this more often. I think WE the players just dog them WAY too much on things we should just hush about. I don't even want to give an example because we all know what I mean and all an example would do is create a sensless debate. You can always find issues to which you can argue both sides of any argument. That is the easy part finding solitude and a common ground from which to work is much harder.

[Shon_Tsu]

You miss the point Anihc. People sidestepping arrows is not the concern, people throwing off the trajectory of the arrows is. The complaint isn't that by quickly sidestepping the arrow passes by over the targets shoulder, its that by jiggling side to side the arrow shoots by 15 metres to the side. Making the hit radius an inch or two bigger isn't going to change that in the slightest.

[Rojon]

Originally posted by Orion
First, the difference in experience expenditure is massive. In order to enjoy that missile defense I have 2 attributes maxed out, and one skill maxed out.
Is Turbine spending too much time using maxed out and uber characters in deciding what/where to make changes? Most players don't have 2 attributes maxed out and one skill maxed out...

This question relates not only to archer PvP fixes but overall for many of the changes that have been put into the game in the past 18 months or more...

[cstanleytech]

Orion regarding the archers I am not debating the fact they need love in pvp and they do deserve and need pvp love and I support efforts to aid them.
In pvm though 3 school archer hybrids are currently more overpowered then mages used to be years ago and I am wondering how are you going to keep this change from making them even more powerful ?

[Kurak]

Further proof that aegis and weeping was a bad idea in the first place.

[iza]

Well MR. DEV sir do you have a list of people on darktide with maxed magic d and maxed melee? I'm sure you do, there are hundreds... and why cause maxing melee and magic d means something. There are very few if any character with max missle.

No one will max missle because you dont need it.

NM i give up

[Last Man]

Its just a different dodge for arrows and war. Giving a little space you can dodge virtually any war...same should be true with arrows.

Even using cxz with archers, I notice arrows that both fly off by 30 degrees AND arrows that whiz by me that are too close for confort. Yes it comes down to a timing thing, but allowing archers to fire slightly faster, plus a larger arrow "tip" should be good against non trained missile D chars.

I plan on training missile D, and they should make it so you have a much better chance (by not killing your accuracy as much on 0 speed) of hitting those that don't.