The OP Archer meta fix

[-HOTG-ODIN]

Crossbows should stay great damage because they actually perform well in real life at puncturing plate and they have a reload timer to make it more fair can always adjust the reload speed.
Long bows should damage medium armored people pretty well but not as much as cbow to plate
Short bows should damage nude or leather wearers But the mail + plate way less damage too

it's really not that hard maybe the coding is but the answer is obvious
go with how they work in real life

So from all of the evidence in the discussion i'm concluding arrows are only good because armor is not working properly.

[Pistachio]

Not sure if like in real life is the best answer.

It's not unusual for English Longbows to go up to about 100 pounds if I understand correctly. Those performed just fine in punching through French armour during their time.

What you're calling "short bows" I'm guessing are the Khuzait (eastern composite bows) stuff. Those can also go up 75 to 100 pounds as well if you want them. Size does not equate to strength when it comes to bows.

To be honest, I don't care about realism as long as the game gets balanced and it isn't too far out of touch with reality while doing so.

But I'm not sure if the OPness of the archers are coming from bow and arrows dealing too much damage.

I think it is partially due to the nature of the weapon (being ranged), AIs being too accurate (although I started seeing some comedy skit level aim at close range from some bots recently), and perhaps armour not doing enough?

Since the last few patches, the aiming reticle started closing slower, reducing fire rate (not sure for it did so too for the bots), plus the infantry started using shields walls effectively (shields up front, low tier units at the back) enough that showering arrows at the face started working far less effectively.

It takes me about 3 to 4 hits to the body with an arrow to take down any random bot at 50 to 120 paces (or whatever unit) away. That's about as good as a one hand sword. Not sure if I'll be happy to see it get worse than that.

Personally, I want to see melee cavs get buffs so that they can be used to hunt down archers.

[Sinsling]

actually the fix imo would be to inverse the speed scaling on bows. higher pound bows = more damage, but are slower to fire. Not these 10000 arrow, punch-through-plate high tier bows.

*this post may or may not include exaggerations.

[-HOTG-ODIN]

Originally posted by Sinsling:

actually the fix imo would be to inverse the speed scaling on bows. higher pound bows = more damage, but are slower to fire. Not these 10000 arrow, punch-through-plate high tier bows.

*this post may or may not include exaggerations.

longbows would not pierce highest grade breastplates maybe some garbage ones sure but i',m talking about the armor in the game thats 40+ not booty ones

[Martell]

Originally posted by Pistachio:

Not sure if like in real life is the best answer.

It's not unusual for English Longbows to go up to about 100 pounds if I understand correctly. Those performed just fine in punching through French armour during their time.

What you're calling "short bows" I'm guessing are the Khuzait (eastern composite bows) stuff. Those can also go up 75 to 100 pounds as well if you want them. Size does not equate to strength when it comes to bows.

To be honest, I don't care about realism as long as the game gets balanced and it isn't too far out of touch with reality while doing so.

But I'm not sure if the OPness of the archers are coming from bow and arrows dealing too much damage.

I think it is partially due to the nature of the weapon (being ranged), AIs being too accurate (although I started seeing some comedy skit level aim at close range from some bots recently), and perhaps armour not doing enough?

Since the last few patches, the aiming reticle started closing slower, reducing fire rate (not sure for it did so too for the bots), plus the infantry started using shields walls effectively (shields up front, low tier units at the back) enough that showering arrows at the face started working far less effectively.

It takes me about 3 to 4 hits to the body with an arrow to take down any random bot at 50 to 120 paces (or whatever unit) away. That's about as good as a one hand sword. Not sure if I'll be happy to see it get worse than that.

Personally, I want to see melee cavs get buffs so that they can be used to hunt down archers.

I think realism is the best balancer. He is principally right in what he says, and everything could be implemented in the skill dependance of the respective abilities.

Accuracy is a huge issue, probably the biggest. Starting out with a really bad accuracy and weak bows archers should level strongly both accuracy and strength, until using the before mentioned heavy bows with a high accuracy at the highest tier, as would have been the case for real archers. That would make bows a fair weapon, but concentrating on trained archers worthwile and fun.

For that levelling should of course change. It's quite annoying that recruits gain their first ranks after the first, unspectacular battle and the others after the succeeding skirmishes. Having to train (and the ability to do so...) troops would make the game also more balanced, which especially would influence archery.

[Pistachio]

I can't tell if I'm not understanding the issue correctly or most people here are missing the point.

The "archer meta" that I know is the player fielding army with high proportions of high tier archers (Champion fians and Palatine guards) and obliterating the AI before melee clash happens.

If the devs nerf archers altogether, it'll reduce effectiveness of archers for both the AI and the player. But the AIs never capitalized on the archery as much as the player did and so would only be adversely affected from any nerfs.

If any change is to be suggested, I'd lean more towards changes that'll preferably affect the player more. Say, get rid of the "Disciplinarian" perk so that the player cannot alone amass an army full of Champion fians.

The source of the problem is that the player can amass Champion fians unlike any other party can do, not that archers are overall too strong. AI parties have well mixed proportions of troops as well as archers of different tiers and those never seemed OP in my understanding.

Or let AI melee Cavs to prioritize on player's archers, or make AI to do less posturing and send infantry straight in. Something like that I think would be better than wholesale nerfing archers.

[Sinsling]

Originally posted by Pistachio:

I can't tell if I'm not understanding the issue correctly or most people here are missing the point.

The "archer meta" that I know is the player fielding army with high proportions of high tier archers (Champion fians and Palatine guards) and obliterating the AI before melee clash happens.

If the devs nerf archers altogether, it'll reduce effectiveness of archers for both the AI and the player. But the AIs never capitalized on the archery as much as the player did and so would only be adversely affected from any nerfs.

If any change is to be suggested, I'd lean more towards changes that'll preferably affect the player more. Say, get rid of the "Disciplinarian" perk so that the player cannot alone amass an army full of Champion fians.

The source of the problem is that the player can amass Champion fians unlike any other party can do, not that archers are overall too strong. AI parties have well mixed proportions of troops as well as archers of different tiers and those never seemed OP in my understanding.

Also there is any horse-archer-centric tactic. The damage and accuracy is fine in my opinion, the fire speed should just be scaled back so that the good archers hurt but can't kill several units in a short time span by using a high fire rate.

[Pistachio]

Personal opinion, but for horse archers I'd rather prefer reduced accuracy and increased rate of fire while running, so that they're effective against large crowd of enemies but not as much against individuals.

[Monsieur Tourette]

It's a single player game what meta are you talking about? Besides you will have to fight hundreeds thousands of enemies, who wants a deep tactic every time? I bet you will press auto resolve. The more grind is ahead the simplier gameplay should be, like Diablo 2. Warband had simple f0 f3 gameplay and I'm okay with Bannerlord archer meta cuz its simple enough and will not burn me out in the long run.

[Vertibird]

I am currently trying to play anti archer. With no archers , just battanian skirmishers. Trying to approach archers without much casualties. But trying to approach vlandian crossbowmen is painful!

[[HTGW] WaffleBaffleBoff]

Originally posted by Monsieur Tourette:

It's a single player game what meta are you talking about? Besides you will have to fight hundreeds thousands of enemies, who wants a deep tactic every time? I bet you will press auto resolve. The more grind is ahead the simplier gameplay should be, like Diablo 2. Warband had simple f0 f3 gameplay and I'm okay with Bannerlord archer meta cuz its simple enough and will not burn me out in the long run.

You have it totally backwards. If the gameplay is simple that is what makes it a boring and pointless grind. Battles should absolutely be tactically challenging thats what makes it NOT a grind. If you don't want a challenge you have the option to use auto resolve or delegate to AI control.

[Dutch81]

The high tier meta is not limited to archers however ... the player can upgrade troops much more efficiently than the AI. Since wages are already an issue that seem to give players fits it seems to me that raising experience required for upgrading is the easiest solution to limiting our elite armies ... since self control apparently isn't one.

[Supply Side Jesus]

The unrealistic part is that bows can reliably damage heavy armored targets. The arrows should bounce off lamellar about 75% time.

[FourGreenFields]

According to my experience, the main-issue is the lack of shields, and lack of proper shield-usage. If that's fixed it... maybe it'll be balanced, maybe not, but it'll be closer for sure.

When I faced an army of the legion of the betrayed, with many big shields... my ~25-30 fian champions got fewer kills than both my melee troops and my skirmishers (fewer in numbers, and lower-tier). They advanced as a shieldwall, and the shields I saw on the ground all had a dozen arrows stuck in them.

Tier 1 troops reliably lack shields, so archers allow you to win those battles reliably without casualties. Pretty sure even levied troops would've often brought shields; giving, say, half the tier 1 troops shields (battanian woodrunners show that that kind of thing is possible) should help a lot with roflstomping newly recruited armies.

Moreover, troops not in a shieldwall regularly drop shields - making recruit-heavy armies even worse. The AI orders loose formation, and the troops that have shields get killed by archers because they're not using their shield. GG. Much the same for charging troops, or troops standing on walls. And shieldwalls don't reliably keep formation, so sometimes shieldless troops are at the front while advancing. Even if only 1/5 of the troops have shields - a dozen arrows stuck in the shield is 4-6 other units saved that could've taken those shots instead. So making sure that happens would go a long way.

Originally posted by Pistachio:

or whatever unit

Take a look at the calendar. Which century is it currently? Which unit for length does that imply for anyone who isn't insisting on things that are obsolete since over a century ago?

Originally posted by -HOTG-ODIN:

Originally posted by Sinsling:

actually the fix imo would be to inverse the speed scaling on bows. higher pound bows = more damage, but are slower to fire. Not these 10000 arrow, punch-through-plate high tier bows.

*this post may or may not include exaggerations.

longbows would not pierce highest grade breastplates maybe some garbage ones sure but i',m talking about the armor in the game thats 40+ not booty ones

The armour in-game isn't high-end plate. I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes, but I do assume that those various scale-based armours are worse than full plate - otherwise, why did people bother with full plate?

[Mac Tonight]

Bows and crossbows did -not- reliably penetrate plate during their time, and there are ample videos on youtube proving this with various draw weights used (bow/crossbow). Other armors are also far more durable than most people seem to think against bows as well, but would obviously perform worse compared to plate.

Go take a look at how effective armor is versus ranged weapons. You'll find yourself pleasantly surprised.

The only ranged weapon type that reliably punched through any kind of armor were guns.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by Bedsheet Ghost:

The only ranged weapon type that reliably punched through any kind of armor were guns.

My memory, and a quick search on DuckDuckGo for "musket vs cuirass" say otherwise. At least depending on your definition of "reliably".