Why Huntsman?

[Langrel]

There is something I could never wrap my head around, the Huntsmans perk, maybe someone can come up with something I can get behind. Talking about archers that use Huntsman, i.e every single archer.

This is what Wiki has to say about it: When the conditions are met, this perk provides approximately 3x damage for longbows and crossbows, 2.3x damage for the recurve bow, and 1.75x for all throwables. Huntsman will also benefit melee weapons that can be thrown, such as the Shortsword, Blacksmith Hammer, Axe, or Maul - But of course, it does not apply to their melee attacks.

Why instead of rewarding precision, going for headshots etc, we just sort of equip the
3 points perk and just one shot each other? Playing archer makes me feel like I am back playing BF4 HC Bolt action rifles only servers.
Is this done in effort to make archers just cancel each other out as soon as possible and leave the melee fighters to their devices?

So if the dmg scale for longbow is 3x and it deals 34 dmg to tier 3 chest, why even bother thinking about armour and most don't, I run either 0-0-0 double crossbow build and basically only hunt other archers or I run 0-1-0 Longbow build and just hope for the best, though I do occasionally see semi armoured sort of hybrid builds, but that usually involves a decent onehander and someone who actually doesn't mind getting into melee fights while playing as an archer.

Is this done in order to encourage stealthy, campy archer gameplay? I can sneak around maps and oneshot archers with my crossbows time and time again, but is this really the point?



I also have a question for all of you who play archer time to time: do you also equip your back up melee to your tertiary slot? I find that if I am faced with certain melee fight, I leave my middle finger on W to run and I use my index finger to press 3 and select my sidearm, does anyone else do that?

[Langrel]

Having thought about it some more, I can think of only one reason for this perk, to discourage heavily armoured players from picking up bows and xbows on the ground and become archer tanks for a few shots, but was that ever a problem? I think this perk was here since launch, was it a problem in the alpha?

[BigJ]

Mostly so archer fights aren't pop a shot, then hide to regen hp all the time.

[Langrel]

Originally posted by BHB | BigJ:

Mostly so archer fights aren't pop a shot, then hide to regen hp all the time.

And that's bad because?

[BigJ]

Originally posted by Langrel:

Originally posted by BHB | BigJ:

Mostly so archer fights aren't pop a shot, then hide to regen hp all the time.

And that's bad because?

It makes archer fights never end.

[Langrel]

Originally posted by BHB | BigJ:

Originally posted by Langrel:

And that's bad because?

It makes archer fights never end.

Aim at the head, take more risk approaching at shorter distances, no?

[BigJ]

Originally posted by Langrel:

Originally posted by BHB | BigJ:

It makes archer fights never end.

Aim at the head, take more risk approaching at shorter distances, no?

T2 helm, t0/t1 armor, done now archer fights take forever if both got cover.

[The_Normal_Anomaly]

I'd have to go test it for how it works now, but I seem to remember the wording once upon a time said that the bonus damage was against people with quivers (meaning they spawned in with a bow or crossbow) and not against people who just grabbed one off the ground, and the guys who spawned in and dropped their weapon still took the bonus damage because they still have a quiver. Could just be ♥♥♥♥ that changed since launch or me not remembering launch stuff.

Think of it like this instead, the archers do have to focus each other because of huntsman. Without that incentive and danger a lot of archers would ignore each other and just shoot into melee. Most of the community hates archers for all the team hits that will always be part of shooting into melee, in addition to them being complete cabbages in melee. Arguably huntsman is also there for captain throwables to delete the low armor archers. Seen a few huntsman javelins bros around who are otherwise normal classes.
The tension of trying to pop an enemy archer before he pops me isn't a bad feeling, knowing that there are nearly no second chances. I pretty much only archer with a t2 or t3 chest which if I remember right can eat a huntsman recurve arrow and survive.

[Langrel]

Originally posted by The_Normal_Anomaly:

I'd have to go test it for how it works now, but I seem to remember the wording once upon a time said that the bonus damage was against people with quivers (meaning they spawned in with a bow or crossbow) and not against people who just grabbed one off the ground, and the guys who spawned in and dropped their weapon still took the bonus damage because they still have a quiver. Could just be ♥♥♥♥ that changed since launch or me not remembering launch stuff.

Think of it like this instead, the archers do have to focus each other because of huntsman. Without that incentive and danger a lot of archers would ignore each other and just shoot into melee. Most of the community hates archers for all the team hits that will always be part of shooting into melee, in addition to them being complete cabbages in melee. Arguably huntsman is also there for captain throwables to delete the low armor archers. Seen a few huntsman javelins bros around who are otherwise normal classes.
The tension of trying to pop an enemy archer before he pops me isn't a bad feeling, knowing that there are nearly no second chances. I pretty much only archer with a t2 or t3 chest which if I remember right can eat a huntsman recurve arrow and survive.

You pick up a bow or crossbow, you now take Huntsman damage, it wasn't always like that, they changed it I believe. You stop taking Huntsman damage a couple seconds after you switch to melee, quiver or no quiver. Idk about incentives, in Chiv archers duelled all the damn time. You either had to hit them twice or hit them with a headshot. Archer fights were more like a first-to-two or a headshot if you are really good / lucky.

Originally posted by BHB | BigJ:

Originally posted by Langrel:

Aim at the head, take more risk approaching at shorter distances, no?

T2 helm, t0/t1 armor, done now archer fights take forever if both got cover.

if 2 archers with cover have it in for each other, then at least they aren't shooting at anyone else. But since the main philosophy of this game is to end fights quickly, I am not surprised it is done like this.

What I am really getting from this though, is that the point system of this game is just incompatible with the idea of having balanced archers, so unless you make longbows and crossbows so expensive the person can't afford much armour if any, because you cannot buff ranged dmg because then it will be disproportionately strong vs. everyone. So you devise an ad-hoc perk and draw a big fat line. This is just one of these things where a fixed class system of Chiv unequivocally shines over a very open, fully customisable system like the one in this game, but I guess it is what it is.

[BigJ]

Originally posted by Langrel:

Originally posted by The_Normal_Anomaly:

I'd have to go test it for how it works now, but I seem to remember the wording once upon a time said that the bonus damage was against people with quivers (meaning they spawned in with a bow or crossbow) and not against people who just grabbed one off the ground, and the guys who spawned in and dropped their weapon still took the bonus damage because they still have a quiver. Could just be ♥♥♥♥ that changed since launch or me not remembering launch stuff.

Think of it like this instead, the archers do have to focus each other because of huntsman. Without that incentive and danger a lot of archers would ignore each other and just shoot into melee. Most of the community hates archers for all the team hits that will always be part of shooting into melee, in addition to them being complete cabbages in melee. Arguably huntsman is also there for captain throwables to delete the low armor archers. Seen a few huntsman javelins bros around who are otherwise normal classes.
The tension of trying to pop an enemy archer before he pops me isn't a bad feeling, knowing that there are nearly no second chances. I pretty much only archer with a t2 or t3 chest which if I remember right can eat a huntsman recurve arrow and survive.

You pick up a bow or crossbow, you now take Huntsman damage, it wasn't always like that, they changed it I believe. You stop taking Huntsman damage a couple seconds after you switch to melee, quiver or no quiver. Idk about incentives, in Chiv archers duelled all the damn time. You either had to hit them twice or hit them with a headshot. Archer fights were more like a first-to-two or a headshot if you are really good / lucky.

Originally posted by BHB | BigJ:

T2 helm, t0/t1 armor, done now archer fights take forever if both got cover.

if 2 archers with cover have it in for each other, then at least they aren't shooting at anyone else. But since the main philosophy of this game is to end fights quickly, I am not surprised it is done like this.

What I am really getting from this though, is that the point system of this game is just incompatible with the idea of having balanced archers, so unless you make longbows and crossbows so expensive the person can't afford much armour if any, because you cannot buff ranged dmg because then it will be disproportionately strong vs. everyone. So you devise an ad-hoc perk and draw a big fat line. This is just one of these things where a fixed class system of Chiv unequivocally shines over a very open, fully customisable system like the one in this game, but I guess it is what it is.

If u rather have restrictive classes over freedom like this ur delusional

[Grey Tea Latte]

As was mentioned, it's mainly to prevent stagnation in archer vs. archer fights. Even by taking relatively light armor, you can wholly prevent 1-shots from ranged weapons, headshots and all. If huntsman wasn't in the game, archer combat would just be trading shots, waiting 5 seconds to regen hp, then trading more shots until someone runs out of ammo and has to run to the resupply box. Considering how one of an archer's main purposes is to take out opposing archers, that wouldn't really work.

Huntsman also allows for better counterplay against archers as a melee class - being able to 1-shot archers with a throwing axe or javelin a huge help. It wouldn't really make sense for a melee lad to have to land his entire inventory's worth of throwables on a single archer, particularly considering the whole 'wait 5 seconds to regen' thing as mentioned earlier.

[Langrel]

Here is my take on this: remove Bows, Crossbows, and Throwables do additional damage if you hit the torso or head of an enemy who is also wielding a Bow or Crossbow from the perk and make it so anyone spawned with a bow or a crossbow deals 1.5x-2.5x dmg to anyone else with a ranged weapon in hands by default, because what archer does not equip Huntsman? They have already abolished the teamdmg perk and hp regen, if you did that then you'd have more points to put in armour for a bit more vs. archer survivability or you can go for a medic bag / firepot and be more involved in the team fight, with greater risk to your life.
That would confuse a lot of people though.

[Grey Tea Latte]

Originally posted by Langrel:

Here is my take on this: remove Bows, Crossbows, and Throwables do additional damage if you hit the torso or head of an enemy who is also wielding a Bow or Crossbow from the perk and make it so anyone with a bow or a crossbow deals 1.5x-2.5x dmg to anyone else with a ranged weapon in hands by default, because what archer does not equip Huntsman? They have already abolished the teamdmg perk and hp regen, if you did that then you'd have more points to put in armour for a bit more vs. archer survivability or you can go for a medic bag / firepot and be more involved in the team fight, with greater risk to your life.

Sure - but this is meaningless. From what you describe, it would function identically to the perk as is, except now archers have a few extra points in their build, and new players would be a lot more confused getting 1-shot from a bow that they read dealt 40 damage to the torso. I was under the impression that you had a problem with Huntsman for balancing reasons, not just with how it's a bit redundant.

[Langrel]

@The Normal Anomaly yes you can survive that, I believe the dmg of recurved bow is 24? to t3 chest, that's about the only thing you can survive.

[Langrel]

Originally posted by Slavic Fedora:

Originally posted by Langrel:

Here is my take on this: remove Bows, Crossbows, and Throwables do additional damage if you hit the torso or head of an enemy who is also wielding a Bow or Crossbow from the perk and make it so anyone with a bow or a crossbow deals 1.5x-2.5x dmg to anyone else with a ranged weapon in hands by default, because what archer does not equip Huntsman? They have already abolished the teamdmg perk and hp regen, if you did that then you'd have more points to put in armour for a bit more vs. archer survivability or you can go for a medic bag / firepot and be more involved in the team fight, with greater risk to your life.

Sure - but this is meaningless. From what you describe, it would function identically to the perk as is, except now archers have a few extra points in their build, and new players would be a lot more confused getting 1-shot from a bow that they read dealt 40 damage to the torso. I was under the impression that you had a problem with Huntsman for balancing reasons, not just with how it's a bit redundant.

Yes I did realise it will confuse a lot of people, many are still confused why the arrows don't just ping off plate armour, I am trying to see if there is a different way other than "here is a must-have perk for archers, go duel other archers for a one shot kill", but the more I do, the less feasible it seems to me.

Also, no, I said 1.5x-2.5x. "When the conditions are met, this perk provides approximately 3x damage for longbows and crossbows, 2.3x damage for the recurve bow, and 1.75x for all throwables."
So I am still looking at the idea of nerfing/changing the perk archer vs. archer wise, the numbers would need finer adjusting though, like longbow / recurve bow dmg bonus differences etc.

[Langrel]

"If u rather have restrictive classes over freedom like this ur delusional"

@BHB | BigJ
these are discussion forums. Yes I do realise no dev read them and this most likely won't go anywhere, but there is something I am unhappy about, I think there could be another way, so I come here to offer my ideas and discuss them with people. Otherwise why have forums?

Class system was and will be used for generations to come, there are probably reasons for that. There are positives and there are drawbacks to it, when compared to open customisation, what I prefer, this one or another doesn't make me less or more "delusional" than anyone else.