Stop asking for a bows & arrows nerf because...

[Veolfen]

... it's the piercing damage type that needs balancing.

This type of damage ignores too much armor making it extremely deadly even against the heaviest armor.

I always thought that maces&hammers should keep a high %base penetration, making them deal their damage to everything (every armor will still protect a bit vs blunt but plate or padded, you'll still take a hit inside those armors).

Meanwhile, "piercing" penetration should be a flat amount. Something around 25 penetration, making it deal very high damages on low to middle tier armors, but being reduced pretty hard by the heaviest armors. (Like in reality, it either goes through, or don't and do little to no damage).

Pretty sure the penetration of the piercing damage type always was the problem, from warband to bannerlord.


Also the TTK is also improved (faster TTK) by the fact the weapons have 2 times the damages (even more for 2 handers & bows) they had in Warband, for way less than 2 times the HPs units had in Warband.

[Flatbuffer]

Good point. If realism is the goal here, arrows simply can not pierce heavy steel armor. Just look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE

[Cptn_Miller]

Publicado originalmente por Cian:

Armor only absorbs 1 - 100/(100+armor) damage from blunt. So 33.33% at 50 armor.

Cut damage gets an extra reduction of 1/2 your armor applied to it. So reducing an additional 25 from cut. 10% of it counts as blunt for penetration.

Pierce damage gets an extra reduction of 1/3 your armor applied to it. So reducing an additional 16.67 from pierce. 25% of it counts as blunt for penetration.

The percentage of blunt only really applies for small hits where the additional reduction would absorb it all. For example, a slash of 30 damage would do zero against 50 armor if not for the 10% blunt thing. So a 30 cut would only end up doing 2 damage. While a 30 blunt would do 20. And a 30 pierce would only do 5.

The model of calculating how much raw damage it is affects a lot, though. Arrows or javelins flying at you get more of a boost than a sword swing.

It wouldn't be hard to make a mod that simply alters these numbers to see how a different armor model changes things :)

good stuff, now to test some hammers !

[desaix]

Publicado originalmente por Stiglets:

Good point. If realism is the goal here, arrows simply can not pierce heavy steel armor. Just look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE

Once again...

(a) There is no heavy steel armor in the game. The armor used in this is at least 400 years further development than the historical equivalent of the best armor in the game.

(b) This video has numerous flaws, many of which they admit to in a later video. Examples include not using the proper type of steel for the breastplay (they did the best they could, but it's almost impossible to make steel with as inconsistant a quality as the historical armor had, nowadays), only using standard iron for the arrowheads (they cite the fact that there were only iron arrowheads found in the wreck of the HMS Mary Rose, from which they pulled all their longbow designs; (a) the Mary Rose wreck occured 100 years after the battle of Agincourt, when arrows were no longer as important on the field of battle (they were starting to be replaced with firearms) and were being manufactured using cheaper parts and (b) the Mary Rose may have only carried iron arrow heads, but the paper records indicate the archers at the battle of Agincourt were using "steeled" arrowheads). In other words, the test is a worst case scenario for the arrows -- the worst possible material for the arrowhead versus the best possible material for the armor, yeah, maybe the armor wins... if the arrow doesn't find a gap in the armor, and only hits the armor at its strongest point.

[ViiK]

Publicado originalmente por desaix:

Publicado originalmente por Stiglets:

Good point. If realism is the goal here, arrows simply can not pierce heavy steel armor. Just look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE

Once again...

(a) There is no heavy steel armor in the game. The armor used in this is at least 400 years further development than the historical equivalent of the best armor in the game.

(b) This video has numerous flaws, many of which they admit to in a later video. Examples include not using the proper type of steel for the breastplay (they did the best they could, but it's almost impossible to make steel with as inconsistant a quality as the historical armor had, nowadays), only using standard iron for the arrowheads (they cite the fact that there were only iron arrowheads found in the wreck of the HMS Mary Rose, from which they pulled all their longbow designs; (a) the Mary Rose wreck occured 100 years after the battle of Agincourt, when arrows were no longer as important on the field of battle (they were starting to be replaced with firearms) and were being manufactured using cheaper parts and (b) the Mary Rose may have only carried iron arrow heads, but the paper records indicate the archers at the battle of Agincourt were using "steeled" arrowheads). In other words, the test is a worst case scenario for the arrows -- the worst possible material for the arrowhead versus the best possible material for the armor, yeah, maybe the armor wins... if the arrow doesn't find a gap in the armor, and only hits the armor at its strongest point.

Do you mind linking that other video? Because if it's this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4pxNM1ifX4
then what you are saying is your own interpretation of his words. Like if you don't know what "steeled" means then don't assume the best case scenario for arrows. Like you are saying that arrowheads are from Mary Rose, but they are not, they are from a different collection an dated to the same decade as battle of Agincourt, the arrow shaft and bows are from Mary Rose.

[desaix]

Publicado originalmente por ViiK:

Publicado originalmente por desaix:

Once again...

(a) There is no heavy steel armor in the game. The armor used in this is at least 400 years further development than the historical equivalent of the best armor in the game.

(b) This video has numerous flaws, many of which they admit to in a later video. Examples include not using the proper type of steel for the breastplay (they did the best they could, but it's almost impossible to make steel with as inconsistant a quality as the historical armor had, nowadays), only using standard iron for the arrowheads (they cite the fact that there were only iron arrowheads found in the wreck of the HMS Mary Rose, from which they pulled all their longbow designs; (a) the Mary Rose wreck occured 100 years after the battle of Agincourt, when arrows were no longer as important on the field of battle (they were starting to be replaced with firearms) and were being manufactured using cheaper parts and (b) the Mary Rose may have only carried iron arrow heads, but the paper records indicate the archers at the battle of Agincourt were using "steeled" arrowheads). In other words, the test is a worst case scenario for the arrows -- the worst possible material for the arrowhead versus the best possible material for the armor, yeah, maybe the armor wins... if the arrow doesn't find a gap in the armor, and only hits the armor at its strongest point.

Do you mind linking that other video? Because if it's this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4pxNM1ifX4
then what you are saying is your own interpretation of his words. Like if you don't know what "steeled" means then don't assume the best case scenario for arrows. Like you are saying that arrowheads are from Mary Rose, but they are not, they are from a different collection an dated to the same decade as battle of Agincourt, the arrow shaft and bows are from Mary Rose.

That was the video, and I'll admit to some extent it is my interpretation, but I'll stick by it. I'll admit to the gaffe about the arrowheads also being from the Mary Rose, but not to the "steeled" interpretation. Steeled MAY have meant actual steel arrowheads, but at the LEAST they meant case hardened, and these weren't even that.

And it STILL doesn't address the fact that THIS ISN'T AN ARMOR THAT IS ANYTHING LIKE WHAT WE HAVE IN THE GAME.

[ViiK]

Publicado originalmente por desaix:

(a) There is no heavy steel armor in the game. The armor used in this is at least 400 years further development than the historical equivalent of the best armor in the game.

Not only plate armor can protect you from the arrows. We know that draw weight of the bow was historically going up as more and more advanced armor was deployed. It's safe to assume that high end armor, in any time period, provided a good protection against arrows. Otherwise, the draw weight wouldn't be increasing and tactics would dramatically change because any high end armor becomes more and more common as time goes.

[desaix]

Publicado originalmente por ViiK:

Publicado originalmente por desaix:

(a) There is no heavy steel armor in the game. The armor used in this is at least 400 years further development than the historical equivalent of the best armor in the game.

Not only plate armor can protect you from the arrows. We know that draw weight of the bow was historically going up as more and more advanced armor was deployed. It's safe to assume that high end armor, in any time period, provided a good protection against arrows. Otherwise, the draw weight wouldn't be increasing and tactics would dramatically change because any high end armor becomes more and more common as time goes.

Armor design would keep improving mostly as defense against spears and swords, not arrows; effectiveness against arrows was certainly a plus, but wasn't the important thing for the outer layer of armor. Armor was layered with different types to protect against multiple things, but there were only so many layers you could add before the armor became unwieldy. Bows and arrows were constantly improved to keep up, but again there was an upper limit to how much a human-powered tool like a bow can be improved before it cannot be used any more. The plate armor era was pretty much the most lopsided against arrows (and the historical record suggests that arrows were STILL effective against it, whatever this test says).

It isn't that arrows are always effective against other types of armor, but rather that this test has no bearing on the effect of arrows versus the type of armor in the game.

[ViiK]

Publicado originalmente por desaix:

Publicado originalmente por ViiK:

Not only plate armor can protect you from the arrows. We know that draw weight of the bow was historically going up as more and more advanced armor was deployed. It's safe to assume that high end armor, in any time period, provided a good protection against arrows. Otherwise, the draw weight wouldn't be increasing and tactics would dramatically change because any high end armor becomes more and more common as time goes.

Armor design would keep improving mostly as defense against spears and swords, not arrows; effectiveness against arrows was certainly a plus, but wasn't the important thing (or cuir boulli would never have been a thing; softer leather is actually better at stopping an arrow than hardened leather, but hardened leather was better at stopping blunt weapons and swords). Armor was layered with different types to protect against multiple things, but there were only so many layers you could add before the armor became unwieldy. Bows and arrows were constantly improved to keep up, but again there was an upper limit to how much a human-powered tool like a bow can be improved before it cannot be used any more. The plate armor era was pretty much the most lopsided against arrows (and the historical record suggests that arrows were STILL effective against it, whatever this test says).

It isn't that arrows are always effective against other types of armor, but rather that this test has no bearing on the effect of arrows versus the type of armor in the game.

No idea what are your sources.
If arrows would be really that effective then every army in Europe would feature huge portion of archers, which didn't happen. Moreover this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uoz0eggQen8
it's pretty clear that some arrowheads make your bow basically useless against some types of armor, which as was said already can be layered, really narrowing down the utility of the bow to a specific applications at specific distance.
It feels like a heavy bias towards archery, because plate armor is pretty much lopsided against everything, include many firearms, not just bows. Check Alan Williams' "The Knight and the Blast Furnace", it's a great story of early "tanks" on the battlefield.

[desaix]

Publicado originalmente por ViiK:

Publicado originalmente por desaix:

Armor design would keep improving mostly as defense against spears and swords, not arrows; effectiveness against arrows was certainly a plus, but wasn't the important thing (or cuir boulli would never have been a thing; softer leather is actually better at stopping an arrow than hardened leather, but hardened leather was better at stopping blunt weapons and swords). Armor was layered with different types to protect against multiple things, but there were only so many layers you could add before the armor became unwieldy. Bows and arrows were constantly improved to keep up, but again there was an upper limit to how much a human-powered tool like a bow can be improved before it cannot be used any more. The plate armor era was pretty much the most lopsided against arrows (and the historical record suggests that arrows were STILL effective against it, whatever this test says).

It isn't that arrows are always effective against other types of armor, but rather that this test has no bearing on the effect of arrows versus the type of armor in the game.

No idea what are your sources.
If arrows would be really that effective then every army in Europe would feature huge portion of archers, which didn't happen. Moreover this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uoz0eggQen8
it's pretty clear that some arrowheads make your bow basically useless against some types of armor, which as was said already can be layered, really narrowing down the utility of the bow to a specific applications at specific distance.
It feels like a heavy bias towards archery, because plate armor is pretty much lopsided against everything, include many firearms, not just bows. Check Alan Williams' "The Knight and the Blast Furnace", it's a great story of early "tanks" on the battlefield.

I really don't see where we're disagreeing, here? All I'm saying is that THAT ONE TEST was pointless as far as the game was concerned, because the game DOESN'T HAVE PLATE ARMOR.

The problem I have with that one test is that (a) it has no bearing on the situation in the game and (b) it has no bearing on the situation in the game. (Well, I also have a problem in that the results of that test do not agree with what happened according to both sides' accounts of the historical battle; in such a situation, I begin to doubt the test and look for possible flaws). If you want to argue that OTHER types of armor are ALSO effective against arrows, I don't have a problem with that, but people trotting out that exact same test in EVERY discussion of arrow effectiveness in this game is starting to get annoying and redundant.

[ViiK]

Publicado originalmente por desaix:

Publicado originalmente por ViiK:

No idea what are your sources.
If arrows would be really that effective then every army in Europe would feature huge portion of archers, which didn't happen. Moreover this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uoz0eggQen8
it's pretty clear that some arrowheads make your bow basically useless against some types of armor, which as was said already can be layered, really narrowing down the utility of the bow to a specific applications at specific distance.
It feels like a heavy bias towards archery, because plate armor is pretty much lopsided against everything, include many firearms, not just bows. Check Alan Williams' "The Knight and the Blast Furnace", it's a great story of early "tanks" on the battlefield.

I really don't see where we're disagreeing, here? All I'm saying is that THAT ONE TEST was pointless as far as the game was concerned, because the game DOESN'T HAVE PLATE ARMOR.

The problem I have with that one test is that (a) it has no bearing on the situation in the game and (b) it has no bearing on the situation in the game. (Well, I also have a problem in that the results of that test do not agree with what happened according to both sides' accounts of the historical battle; in such a situation, I begin to doubt the test and look for possible flaws). If you want to argue that OTHER types of armor are ALSO effective against arrows, I don't have a problem with that, but people trotting out that exact same test in EVERY discussion of arrow effectiveness in this game is starting to get annoying and redundant.

There is equal number of posts where people claim that if it's not a plate armor then bows are very effective and therefor the game deal with it "accurately". Maybe you didn't mean this but that's how it sounds as resembles the typical narrative "no plate? then archers rule".

That's what happens in the game right now, a tier 2 archer can defeat any top tier troops, not single shot them, but multiple shots even at limbs are somehow enough.
What is more hilarious, in staged 1 vs 1 battles, an Imperial Archer (which is as low as it gets for archers) won every time against a lord, just mauling them with their mace.

[[MNI] Kisune]

Publicado originalmente por ViiK:

Publicado originalmente por desaix:

I really don't see where we're disagreeing, here? All I'm saying is that THAT ONE TEST was pointless as far as the game was concerned, because the game DOESN'T HAVE PLATE ARMOR.

The problem I have with that one test is that (a) it has no bearing on the situation in the game and (b) it has no bearing on the situation in the game. (Well, I also have a problem in that the results of that test do not agree with what happened according to both sides' accounts of the historical battle; in such a situation, I begin to doubt the test and look for possible flaws). If you want to argue that OTHER types of armor are ALSO effective against arrows, I don't have a problem with that, but people trotting out that exact same test in EVERY discussion of arrow effectiveness in this game is starting to get annoying and redundant.

There is equal number of posts where people claim that if it's not a plate armor then bows are very effective and therefor the game deal with it "accurately". Maybe you didn't mean this but that's how it sounds as resembles the typical narrative "no plate? then archers rule"

Well to be fair if you come around with history to counter the No plate then archers rule faction and your counter is plate then that just seems Sily
then agein didnt watch the video and thats just how i assumed hot it went from the discussion of you guys

[ViiK]

Publicado originalmente por MNI Kísune:

Publicado originalmente por ViiK:

There is equal number of posts where people claim that if it's not a plate armor then bows are very effective and therefor the game deal with it "accurately". Maybe you didn't mean this but that's how it sounds as resembles the typical narrative "no plate? then archers rule"

Well to be fair if you come around with history to counter the No plate then archers rule faction and your counter is plate then that just seems Sily
then agein didnt watch the video and thats just how i assumed hot it went from the discussion of you guys

The point is rather simple, a top tier troops should be resilient, be it a bow or a spear. The way game works right now, because of many different issue, bugs and weird balance of damage, as OP said, the bow comes out as an ultimate weapon on battlefield. I've played archer with HA army campaign and it was the most boring experience in M&B I ever had. Its very easy to shoot with a bow, the damage output at distance is no joke, ability to shoot around the shields and etc. all that leads unrewarding gameplay. This is a part of the game where imho much more work should be done. The whole armor mechanics feels dated and simplistic.

[[MNI] Kisune]

Publicado originalmente por ViiK:

Publicado originalmente por MNI Kísune:

Well to be fair if you come around with history to counter the No plate then archers rule faction and your counter is plate then that just seems Sily
then agein didnt watch the video and thats just how i assumed hot it went from the discussion of you guys

The point is rather simple, a top tier troops should be resilient, be it a bow or a spear. The way game works right now, because of many different issue, bugs and weird balance of damage, as OP said, the bow comes out as an ultimate weapon on battlefield. I've played archer with HA army campaign and it was the most boring experience in M&B I ever had. Its very easy to shoot with a bow, the damage output at distance is no joke, ability to shoot around the shields and etc. all that leads unrewarding gameplay. This is a part of the game where imho much more work should be done. The whole armor mechanics feels dated and simplistic.

Yhea that i fully agree with (i am anyway somebody that does not give a ♥♥♥♥ about historical accuracy had a mod in warband where a japanese faction were in normaly their katanas should at most break when striking plate armor but hell that would make no sense balance wise)
just a small potential flaw i wantet to point out since (if it actualy was the case) using something unrelatet while truue still stays unrelatet

[desaix]

Publicado originalmente por ViiK:

Publicado originalmente por desaix:

I really don't see where we're disagreeing, here? All I'm saying is that THAT ONE TEST was pointless as far as the game was concerned, because the game DOESN'T HAVE PLATE ARMOR.

The problem I have with that one test is that (a) it has no bearing on the situation in the game and (b) it has no bearing on the situation in the game. (Well, I also have a problem in that the results of that test do not agree with what happened according to both sides' accounts of the historical battle; in such a situation, I begin to doubt the test and look for possible flaws). If you want to argue that OTHER types of armor are ALSO effective against arrows, I don't have a problem with that, but people trotting out that exact same test in EVERY discussion of arrow effectiveness in this game is starting to get annoying and redundant.

There is equal number of posts where people claim that if it's not a plate armor then bows are very effective and therefor the game deal with it "accurately". Maybe you didn't mean this but that's how it sounds as resembles the typical narrative "no plate? then archers rule"

I am on the record, in another thread, of saying I don't think armor is resolving arrows correctly. But I'm growing to HATE that one particular video, because it adds nothing to the conversation other than giving some people this smug sense of "see? Arrows should always bounce off of armor and be completely ineffective!" when this test is only of one type of arrow against one type of armor (which isn't even in the game), and is an imperfect test at best. That one test genuinely feels to me like a worst-case scenario for the arrows.

This is a pet peeve of mine, brought on by the TV show Mythbusters. They once tried to bust the myth that "splinters" would kill people on a ship. They did this by firing a replica field artillery cannon at a simulated warship's hull, and used this to show that splinters of the size that might harm someone would never be produced with the force needed to kill someone -- this despite literally thousands of records of people dying because of wooden splinters. Problems with the test: Field artillery cannons were lightweights compared to ships cannons, and weren't designed with naval combat in mind. The typical "weight of fire" of the average piece of field artillery was 6 lbs; the SMALLEST standard naval cannon fired a 9 lb shot, ranging up to the 64lb carronades found on larger ships such as the HMS Victory (there may have even been some 128 lb carronades on some ships, but I have yet to confirm that record). Also, the particular warship they chose the hull design from was the USS Constitution, which had been heavily over-engineered (it would be easier to penetrate the hull of the aforementioned HMS Victory with a cannon shot, even though the Victory was twice her size). They came to the conclusion that ALL naval battle situations were the same using a worst-case scenario demonstration of cannonballs versus ships hull. What the test actually showed was that the historical record of cannonballs bouncing off the hull of the Constitution was, in fact, actually possible... but that's not what they said they were testing for.

I feel the same is being done (not by these testers, but by some people in these threads), where they see a test where (iron, as opposed to case-hardened or maybe even steel head) arrows are shown to be ineffective against (plate with modern steel metallurgy, hitting at just the right\wrong spot) armor, and conclude that all arrows should be ineffective against all armor.

[Mad_House]

Just throw in matchlocks.