Archery

[Zweeble]

This post is meant to be more an observation than a gripe.

I used to play this game in its hayday in the late 90's, so im fully aware of what the original game was like. With that said, i understand what game you're trying to emulate.


Obviously, my main character is primarily an archer. To this day i have yet to see one other person ever use archery as their primary offense and rarely see it at all. I think a major reason for this unbalance is the simple fact that bows and crossbows cannot be repaired and degrade very rapidly. I once spent 5k for a bow of power and was unable to even make my money back before the effectivness of the bow was worse than a new gm made bow. so whats the point? Now i constantly go through gm bows and have to replace them after maybe 20-30 kills on average before the damage gets ridiculous and the accuracy goes to hell. a gm archer shouldnt be missing 40% of his shots.

So why is one group of weapons so badly handicapped? I mean virtually no one uses bows. Wouldnt a little bit of balance make the game more diverse? Or was archery created to piss people off?

I know in the original game they could not be repaired either. so that i understand. But these bows seem to downgrade far more rapidly. i dont expect anything to come of this, but wouldnt the game be more enjoyable if there was a bit more diversity? not to mention all the player vendors out there that never sell many bows. Quite simply its bad economics. why should i spend 10k for a bow of vanquishing when its practically worthless after a couple hours of fighting?

now like i said i dont expect them to become repairable because that was part of the original game. But could there ever be a way that they could become a bit more durable? no other weapons class is penalized like archery... so all i ask is, why?


Vaedian the archer

[Derrick]

Certainly it was never by design. No one has ever brought this up before so it's never been looked into. There's been talk about repairability of heavies, but that hasn't been established as accurate (yet?).

I'll look into the ranged weapon durability.

[Jack]

get out of my weapon class

[Zweeble]

Thank you for the quick response. I've never posted before and figured this would get looked over. A large portion of the balencing problem lies on the original game developers. You guys are just going with what they did. So in no way am i blaming you guys. Any effort is greatly appreciated.

Also, outside of a few small things here and there, you guys have done a great job of bringing back the true T2A. since i first started on this server, the average population has doubled and i credit that to your guy's integrity. keep it up.


Vaedian

[Greven]

First day on the shard here...quick question...do bow's fire while running, or do you have to be stopped? I'm a fan of archery as well

[superdunk]

Archery used to be THE force if you wanted kills.

PVM or PVP, you could take 30% of one's life with a good shot.


Now, like you said nobody uses it and it seems almost usless. Like I said in magic is too much thread, archery boost would help greatly in establishing a better balance.

and for the "well, t2a was.. etc etc" how many things did THOSE guys fuck up? may be they thought shit was not working as well but were too lazy/underpaid to fix. Just a thought.

[Kaivan]

Regardless of the circumstances that created the environment of T2A during 98 to 2000, the fact remains: T2A was what T2A was. Since it's our goal to replicate what T2A was, our efforts will always be focused in that direction. We are not here to play developer and to attempt to make one particular skill fit any better with the other skills than it did during T2A. We are here to, as closely as possible, re-create the game that existed at that time, no more, no less. Of course, you may think "But it's glaringly obvious that T2A was imbalanced", and I would absolutely agree. T2A was by no means a balanced system across the board and it was known that the game was not balanced at the time, and in the spirit of that era, I am rather proud of the fact that we have created an environment where more and more of the same imbalanced portions of T2A emerge and flourish here. That, more than anything, is an indication that we are moving in the right direction.

As for the usefulness of Archery; archery lost its appeal even before T2A came out when they removed the ability to run and shoot your bow. From that point on until mid-UOR, archery was considered a very underpowered skill except in the rare cases of PvM in specific areas.

As for Magery, it has long since been understood that Magery was the "jack of all trades". Place on top of that the unique transportation abilities and Magery clearly becomes one of the most powerful choices for skills. Is this a balanced functionality? Hardly. But as I have said before, we aren't here to develop and "balance" around the T2A era, we are here to re-create it as best as possible, imbalances and all.

[superdunk]

Regardless of the circumstances that created the environment of T2A during 98 to 2000, the fact remains: T2A was what T2A was. Since it's our goal to replicate what T2A was, our efforts will always be focused in that direction. We are not here to play developer and to attempt to make one particular skill fit any better with the other skills than it did during T2A. We are here to, as closely as possible, re-create the game that existed at that time, no more, no less. Of course, you may think "But it's glaringly obvious that T2A was imbalanced", and I would absolutely agree. T2A was by no means a balanced system across the board and it was known that the game was not balanced at the time, and in the spirit of that era, I am rather proud of the fact that we have created an environment where more and more of the same imbalanced portions of T2A emerge and flourish here. That, more than anything, is an indication that we are moving in the right direction.

As for the usefulness of Archery; archery lost its appeal even before T2A came out when they removed the ability to run and shoot your bow. From that point on until mid-UOR, archery was considered a very underpowered skill except in the rare cases of PvM in specific areas.

As for Magery, it has long since been understood that Magery was the "jack of all trades". Place on top of that the unique transportation abilities and Magery clearly becomes one of the most powerful choices for skills. Is this a balanced functionality? Hardly. But as I have said before, we aren't here to develop and "balance" around the T2A era, we are here to re-create it as best as possible, imbalances and all.

Thanks for the response, and I can't help but ask

If there are obvious things you can improve on.. why not make the experience better?
Maybe its the way I think and how it relates to other things I do, but if something could be better why not do it?
I've seen Derrick talk about this as well - he knows you can implement things that will improve the gameplay.

[Kaivan]

The reality is that changing something to make it "better" is relative to each person. If one person views making Archery "better" by improving its damage or allowing you to run and shoot, others will view it as preferential treatment to a particular skill and a relative weakening of their own skill. If that stance is taken, we would not only violate our mandate as a server, but we would have to entertain every idea and request for improvement to any skill in order to be fair to the player base. This is obviously not a good idea, because we would hardly get anywhere with anything because we would be constantly re-evaluating the balance between all skills with each and every little change. Not only that, but we become the developers for the server at this point and it would be folly for us to presume that we knew better than the developers of the game what was considered "balanced" or not, and we would be doing exactly that if we began handling things in this way.

[Zweeble]

Obviously you missed the part when i said that bows degrade much faster than the original game. i played the real game for 4 years and i am positive that bows and crossbows lasted much longer and were more effective, and im not the only one who thinks so. if you noticed the other post from someone who played the real game. I would bet if you took the time to ask people who played the original for a substantial amount of time would agree with me. At no point did i ever say, "make it better."



Despite what you say, by not considering the durability of bows in the original you're further away from the original. isnt that what you wanted? to make it as close as possible? considering this, your argument makes no sense. did you ever play the original? did you ever even pick up a bow? i doubt it. The only reason why this hasnt come up more coincides with my point that its an almost worthless skill that almost no one uses. im the only dumbass who tried it. stupid me. you guys pride yourselves on "getting it right" and thats exactly what im asking for. get it right.

Vaedian

[Kaivan]

The responses that I posted weren't about the durability of bows, nor were they in response to anything you said, but I can understand the ambiguity because I didn't quote the post that was directly above it, which is what I was responding to.

As for the durability issue with archery weapons, I'll have to check with Derrick to see what's currently being used for weapon durability, and we'll compare it to the known information about weapons. If there is a problem with durability, then I'm sure that we'll figure out exactly what the problem is and correct it.

[pablo]

I totally agree here. I was an archer on the original T2A and was able to hold my own a lot better than I can here. I had to make this one an archer/bard to give him a chance as a money builder. PVP, forget about it.

[Jaster]

I have an archer mage and he doesnt fine in the field ... little hard to fight in an arena style 1v1, but its doable. More of a challenge makes it fun.

[Zweeble]

its not more fun though when archery is your primary means of offense. you said yourself that you are a mage/archer. you have a bit more versatility. to me its a constant challenge to even stick with it and just be like everyone else and turn into another mage.

Also, i want to apologize for being a bit brash. its frustrating to be told "how it was" by someone who may have less knowledge or experience in a specific field.

In essence we want the same thing. We both want to make the game closer to the original. The only difference is that the deficiency in archery has been completely over looked until now. Like i first stated, this was more an observation than a complaint. Like i previously mentioned, you guys have actually done a great job on the server and im pleased with the results. The server is flourishing and thats thanks to the work you guys do.

No matter how you look at it though, making a change in durability and overall effectivness of range weapons is a win win situation. the game becomes more balenced and diverse. you guys make a big step torwards making the game more like the original and the struggling player run vendors can put more money in their pockets. whats to argue with that?

Also, in reguards to the statement that archery was never a popular skill in the original is half right. maybe 5% of the players used it as their primary means of attack, but 5% is far greater than the .02% i represent on this server. Again i greatly appreciate the work you guys do. Thanks

Vaedian

[Teknix]

since this pertains to the topic...


does anatomy add to the archery bonus?