Sign in to follow this  
wasntme

Should Archery Really Give Fight Skill ?

Recommended Posts

So what you are proposing is that the skills tree would look more like this:

Ranged

  • Archery
    • Short Bow
    • Long Bow
    • Composite Bow

    [*]Throwing

Fight Skill (Renamed to Melee Combat)

  • Unarmed
  • Sword
    • Short
    • Long
    • 2Handed

    [*]Maul

    • Small
    • Medium
    • Large

    [*]Etc...

I think a better question is, why?

Drawbacks I can easily see:

  • In this style skill tree, FS would provide additional bonuses to the skills nested under it
  • for those who are currently highly skilled in both FS and archery, this would require them to reskill up on ranged combat

It just seems to add a layer of complexity that is not likely to be needed, and will impact the skill balance in PVE as well as PVP. But maybe I'm overthinking it?

Edited by Hussars
  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

From your logic there should be no Archery skill! You would have general fighting skill and the skills required to use the weapons. And that is not the case when you have a dedicated archery skill.

And if it was the first case presented, it would still make so sense that hand to hand combat would use the same aptitudes as ranged combat if you compare it to RL. Aiming, having a steady hand, predicting the enemy movement and such do not help you In a fight where you must know how to move or to avoid getting hit, and as recently discussed weapon skill dose not even affect your landing rate, so you would assume that the actual chance to hit with your weapon is based on Fighting skill which can be actually called a Melee combat skill.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

WE can have

  1. combat
  2. Melee

  • Swords
  • Maul
  • Axe

  1. Range

  • Short
  • Bow
  • Long

Edited by shadowblasta

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Archery is a base theory as is "sword". These outline a basic school of skill with basic approach skills. There are differences in mastering a long bow vs. short bow vs. composite bow, just like there are differences in mastering different sword types.

So no, it does not eliminate a "need" for a general archery skill.

If you really want to get into weapon theory, we'd also need 1 edge vs. dual edge under all edged weapons. Or you could generalize it as slice, pierce/thrust, bashing with each actual weapon listed under its primary damage type.

Funny thing is, 1handed single edge slicing weapons follow a lot of the same theory and styles as 1 handed bashing, because they use amost the same idea in ways damage is caused, just a difference in surface area. In its simplest form, a sword is simply a stick with a sharpened edge. This surface area reduction at the point of offensive contact allows the weapon to more easily bypass the first layer of your natural defense (your skin) instead of being more equally disturbuted across a larger area due to fluid dynamics (as seen with bashing).

But this gets more into the physics of why and how a weapon does the damage it does and less about how the game tracks your skill progress in the use of that weapon.

Edited by Hussars

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think the OP has a legitimate point, and some of you got pretty ridiculous with your thread-derailing.

1. Why would you need a "ranged combat" skill? We have it. Its called Archery.

2. Your counter to the boxing comment falls on its face because all of a sudden you say "of course you're still gonna lose to the guy with high unarmed combat. What about the guy with equally low unarmed combat, but no experience fighting monsters with a bow?

Try this: Person A has killed 100 monsters with unarmed combat, 0 with bows. 20 unarmed skill, 10 FS.

Person B has killed 1000 monsters with bow, 0 with melee. 0 unarmed skill, 50 FS. Archer wins boxing match? Fail.

Here's the biggest tell: Take your boat out and watch the forest near the beach. Collect thousands of arrows. At what point did archery become such a lucrative means of gaining FS that people will leave thousands of arrows just laying on the ground? Never used to be the case.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Lets compromise and have all tools that can also be used (no matter how poorly) as a weapon give fight skill along with the current skill every time the item is used for anything. That way we empower our self defense with every fillet and shovelful of dirt and i dont have to train FS as is again.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Please deliver me ~6,000 corpses so that I can butcher and filet them, then go kill trolls and dragons with my newfound knowledge of anatomy! :D

Seriously though, you can kill monsters with a bow until 70 fight skill and then pick up a sword with rank 1 normal fighting rank 1 swords and kill hell hounds, scorps, crocs, etc. That doesn't make sense. You can't learn to dodge and hit with a sword from a boat, having never been within 20 tiles of anything dangerous.

Check your info again, melee weapon skill is not chance to hit. You will be able to hit mobs with a sword simply because of your FS gained from archery.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I would think archery should not give fightskill at all.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Please deliver me ~6,000 corpses so that I can butcher and filet them, then go kill trolls and dragons with my newfound knowledge of anatomy! :D

Seriously though, you can kill monsters with a bow until 70 fight skill and then pick up a sword with rank 1 normal fighting rank 1 swords and kill hell hounds, scorps, crocs, etc. That doesn't make sense. You can't learn to dodge and hit with a sword from a boat, having never been within 20 tiles of anything dangerous.

Check your info again, melee weapon skill is not chance to hit. You will be able to hit mobs with a sword simply because of your FS gained from archery.

I dont see why not. You killed a ton of mobs with arrows. you know where the arrows hurt them most, you know how they move etc. So afcoarse you have an idea where to stab with that sword. Afcoarse you still cant parry with that sword because you dont have any swordskill! For the same reason your hits dont hurt as much. You also don't know how to handle a shield and get hit far more often.

I think it does make sense.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Archery doenst give fs, hitting stuff with mauls and swords doesnt give fs. Killing creatures gives fs.

Edited by Dagobert
  • Like 4

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The bottom line is games don't always need to be logical, but they do need to be balanced. Argue all you want about pressure points and weak points, archery is currently an overpowered way to raise your FS.

Put it this way: Level to 70 FS via archery and look how easy it is to kill any normal monster with your level 1 sword skill. Next level to 70 FS via melee skill and then show me how well you do picking up a bow for the first time.

By your "logic" of "knowing where to hurt the most", shouldn't the skills transfer both ways? Shouldn't you know where to shoot something because of how many times you've stabbed them?

I'm not saying I want archery skill for using a sword, we're saying that gaining a skill that governs NOTHING when performing archery, via archery, makes no sense.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Fighting as a Skill impacts (and determines) base Combat Rating (ability to hit your target and to be hit), weapon skill determines your combat effectiveness (damage mod, +bonus to hit/parry, stances, focus, special attacks, etc...)

Fighting as a System is described here.

Again, it appears to be an issue over the name or term used and not how the system functions. Unless you want to have a second system specifically added for range, which I would think would mean your shield vs ranged combat would be checked against your ranged FS/CR and not your melee FS/CR.

If you separate the current Fight Skill into Ranged and Melee, those systems would need to be the check for the combat outcome. i.e. Someone fires an arrow, your Ranged CR is the base CR value modified by your shield skill.

Or are you saying you want your melee FS to be used against the ranged FS? Because based on these arguments/discsussions, the general impression I get is that people are wanting a melee FS/CR character to be able to out range defense a ranged based FS/CR. Which makes no sense if the ranged vs. melee FS/CR were to be developed.

Edited by Hussars

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The bottom line is games don't always need to be logical, but they do need to be balanced. Argue all you want about pressure points and weak points, archery is currently an overpowered way to raise your FS.

I completely agree with the first sentence but I also completely disagree with the second one.

First of all I want to say a few things about the "overpowered" archery again.

There are several "problems" that limit the power of archery as a way to raise FS:

1. Arrows

In hand to hand combat you can keep trying to hit the target as long as you are both alive. Archery has ammo (arrows). Once you run out of them your bow becomes useless.

Is it easy to deal with this issue?

Not that easy. An arrow that has less than 20 ql is useless as it will keep glancing of the target's armor or even worse it will break on impact. So you need to imp every single arrow that you want to use. It takes a good amount of time to imp enough arrows to a ql that will make them not break all the time (and a LOT of time if you don't have high fletching skill). The minimum is 40ql with a 70ql longbow (at least this is when I get a "break-rate" that I consider acceptable). If you have a weaker bow you will need to increase the arrow ql even more.

What if you manage to get some really high ql arrows?

Breaking is not the only thing that can reduce the number of arrows that will be available to you. It is also possible to simply lose arrows if you miss the target and be unable to find them on the ground (and if you decide to hunt in a forest it becomes even more difficult to retrieve such arrows). With every hit your target will also start moving around, decreasing your hit-rate and spreading your arrows to a larger area. It is also possible that your target will start climbing a mountain or other impassable terrain. I lost 40+x50ql arrows in a troll once this way.

2. Some targets are not as vulnerable to arrows than others.

For example scorpions crocodiles and other armored mobs are a bad choice unless you can use aim-at-face but if you need to have a chance of hitting them there you need a really good bow, good skills and probably make sure that your distance is good. Trolls are good targets but you should be able to deal damage on them fast enough or you will be required to spend extra arrows on them. Spiders will also be a poor choice if you don't have a good bow.

3. Minimum distance and aggro range

Every (or almost every) hit will make your target to move around, if you are within its aggro range it will come towards you and you will have to retreat. You CAN'T shoot while moving on a horse and you need to be standing still to even start start drawing the bow string. Your target will also have to stay out of minimum range until your are able to shoot(that's almost 5 seconds and even more if you don't have full stamina when you press "shoot") or you will not be able to realease the arrow at all. Using a shoot-goback-shoot technique while staying within the target's aggro range wouldn't work because the 5+ seconds are usually enough for your target to get really close to you. The same will happen if your target hides behind a fence or a small hill during these 5+ seconds. On the other hand if you are out of its aggro range it may start climbing a mountain with all your arrows in it.

4. Occasionally you will have to chose the location from which you will be shooting.

If the area is full of aggros it may be a bit tricky to find where you will be standing to shoot. If another aggro attacks you you have to either retreat or change weapons to deal with it asap. If your target is close to impassable terrain you may need to make sure that you will be able to prevent it by drawing aggro from it or risk losing any arrows in it when it will escape by climbing a mountain.

Archery can be a good way to raise FS (if you do it right it you can kill a lot of targets without getting hurt at all) but it has a LOT of limitations too (limitations that are more than enough to prevent someone who knows them to call it overpowered). It is also usually more time consuming to kill a mob by shooting arrows at it than by mauling it. If anyone still believes that it is overpowered then he should just try it. After all if it was really that overpowered why we don't see every newbie grinding his fs through archery?

meelee combat vs archery for FS and their effect on meelee combat:

There IS difference between 70FS & 0 weapon skill and 70FS & 50 weaponskill. So if you get your FS through archery anyone who got it "normally" will have an advantage against you. Whether the difference is in the hit chance or the parry rate the result is that having higher weaponskill will give you an advantage. Archery also doesn't give any normal/defensive/agressive fighting skill so you will have skills that give you extra advantage against the archer. Archery will also reduce the amount of possible first aid skill that you can get during a hunting trip. And all these extra skills are not just numbers. They have an effect in combat.

About realism:

Training our fighting subskills, shield skills and shield bashing on a foal and then using these skills to protect ourselves from a troll/eaglespirit (much stronger/nimbler opponents) or to stun it is not realistic too. Using a sword/axe on trees currently makes you better at using it in combat and it's not realistic(or if it is then it should be equally realistic to get similar skill gains for bashing stuff with a maul as by using them you are still getting better at handling them).

But as you said (and I completely agree with it):

The bottom line is games don't always need to be logical, but they do need to be balanced.

PS. My main has over 70FS and 70 archery in both freedom and epic and over 50 weapon skill on at least one weapon. Due to either the fact that I didn't want to spend a lot of silver for really good armor and weapons (as a newbie in freedom) or the fact that I didn't want to use up cotton (in epic) I got the FS of my main up to 40-50FS through archery. But then I switched to hand to hand combat as it was much easier and less time consuming than if I used my bow. My freedom alt has a little less than 70FS now and I have chosen NOT to use archery (once I was done with the practice doll I started using my mauls) because it is in fact easier and faster(according to my experience at least).

Edited by Anothernoob
  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think Dagobert put it very clear, rendering all discusion about just useless.

If you think different, go to a good mobs populated place and start figthing the mobs with the weapon of your choice, but wen the mob reach 30-40% of his healp pool retreat and go against a different one, do it for couple of hours and come back and tell us how much Fs you gained.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think Dagobert put it very clear, rendering all discusion about just useless.

If you think different, go to a good mobs populated place and start figthing the mobs with the weapon of your choice, but wen the mob reach 30-40% of his healp pool retreat and go against a different one, do it for couple of hours and come back and tell us how much Fs you gained.

-1. You're agreeing with a perfectly true statement.... that has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation. It renders nothing useless. Both swords and arrows can be used to KILL mobs, thereby gaining FS, bringing us back to the OP.

I completely agree with the first sentence but I also completely disagree with the second one.

First of all I want to say a few things about the "overpowered" archery again.

There are several "problems" that limit the power of archery as a way to raise FS:

1. Arrows

In hand to hand combat you can keep trying to hit the target as long as you are both alive. Archery has ammo (arrows). Once you run out of them your bow becomes useless.

Is it easy to deal with this issue?

If you go a little further back in the discussion you'll see where I posted that you can collect literally thousands of arrows just by traveling along shorelines watching for arrows in the ocean and 5-10 tiles in from shore because this method of gaining FS is so lucrative most people don't even pick them up. Without replying to every single reason you listed about arrows being a limiting factor, I think this fact kind of covers them all.

2. Some targets are not as vulnerable to arrows than others.

3. Minimum distance and aggro range

4. Occasionally you will have to chose the location from which you will be shooting.

After all if it was really that overpowered why we don't see every newbie grinding his fs through archery?

I'm not quite sure about these arguments, all of these problems and more apply to melee weapons. Trolls and crocs take 3x as many hits with melee weapons as spiders do also, except with melee you're taking damage this entire time its taking 3x as long, and if you aggro additional mobs (as opposed to being on a boat safely out of range) the additional adds are ganking you.

meelee combat vs archery for FS and their effect on meelee combat:

There IS difference between 70FS & 0 weapon skill and 70FS & 50 weaponskill. So if you get your FS through archery anyone who got it "normally" will have an advantage against you.

Of course there is an advantage there, but now you're down to the brass tacks of the argument.

Archery and its subskill for your selected bow type already cover everything needed for your ranged offensive combat rating calculation, fighting skill does not need to be taken into account at all to figure out how much damage you deal or your accuracy with a bow. Why does longbow get to double dip from both the archery AND fighting skill, when fighting skill also includes dodging, blocking, and melee accuracy and damage benefits as well? You shouldn't be learning dodging, melee accuracy, melee dmg, or shield blocking, by firing at something with a bow and arrow from 25 tiles away on a boat.

Again, it appears to be an issue over the name or term used and not how the system functions. Unless you want to have a second system specifically added for range, which I would think would mean your shield vs ranged combat would be checked against your ranged FS/CR and not your melee FS/CR.

If you separate the current Fight Skill into Ranged and Melee, those systems would need to be the check for the combat outcome. i.e. Someone fires an arrow, your Ranged CR is the base CR value modified by your shield skill.

This two system combat is exactly what we think it should be, but you're vastly overstating the complexities of implementation to support your argument. There doesn't need to be an FS/CR for ranged and an FS/CR for melee, with an FS/CR modified by shield skill for arrows defense, take fighting skill OUT of the ranged CR calculation and then simply compare that to the person's shield block rating the way its already implemented.

Or are you saying you want your melee FS to be used against the ranged FS? Because based on these arguments/discsussions, the general impression I get is that people are wanting a melee FS/CR character to be able to out range defense a ranged based FS/CR. Which makes no sense if the ranged vs. melee FS/CR were to be developed.

Why would you think that? I don't think that anyone has stated that a character with FS from training with sword and shield should be invulnerable to ranged attacks, if they did, I apologize on their behalf and withdraw it.

Check this out:

Gonna use simple numbers for an example, of course the actual implementation will vary slightly.

Archer: 70 Longbow, 70 Archery -> Call this 70 Ranged CR.

Defender: 70 FS, 70 LMS -> Call this 70 Defense Rating.

BAM! Call that a 50% chance to block or dodge the arrows, and some complicated damage reduction calculation for the successful hits for partial dodge/deflection etc.

This system seems completely fair to me considering that ranged vs melee (except melee range shortbow, in which case you deserve to die a brutal death) is a no-danger affair for the archer.

TL;DR There is absolutely no reason that an archer's offensive CR calculation can't be modified to be effective without fighting skill being involved in the equation (if it even is now). Once that is removed, there is absolutely no reason for FS gains through archery kills. They are unrelated.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

[...]

Archery and its subskill for your selected bow type already cover everything needed for your ranged offensive combat rating calculation, fighting skill does not need to be taken into account at all to figure out how much damage you deal or your accuracy with a bow. Why does longbow get to double dip from both the archery AND fighting skill, when fighting skill also includes dodging, blocking, and melee accuracy and damage benefits as well? You shouldn't be learning dodging, melee accuracy, melee dmg, or shield blocking, by firing at something with a bow and arrow from 25 tiles away on a boat.

[...]

This two system combat is exactly what we think it should be, but you're vastly overstating the complexities of implementation to support your argument. There doesn't need to be an FS/CR for ranged and an FS/CR for melee, with an FS/CR modified by shield skill for arrows defense, take fighting skill OUT of the ranged CR calculation and then simply compare that to the person's shield block rating the way its already implemented.

[...]

Check this out:

Gonna use simple numbers for an example, of course the actual implementation will vary slightly.

Archer: 70 Longbow, 70 Archery -> Call this 70 Ranged CR.

Defender: 70 FS, 70 LMS -> Call this 70 Defense Rating.

BAM! Call that a 50% chance to block or dodge the arrows, and some complicated damage reduction calculation for the successful hits for partial dodge/deflection etc.

This system seems completely fair to me considering that ranged vs melee (except melee range shortbow, in which case you deserve to die a brutal death) is a no-danger affair for the archer.

Might want to read the CR link I posted.. considering Rolf explains how it works by code...

Combat Rating system info from Rolf:

First of all, the bonus is applied to something that is called Combat Rating or CR for short in the system. Every creature has one. It is very similar to the concept of levels in other games, just that it fluctuates a lot more in wurm. It is the basis for calculating the chance to hit another creature. Players have a base combat rating of 4.

If the troll I am fighting has CR 10 and I have CR 4 I have about 4/(10+4) chance to hit the troll, or 29% every attack. The troll on the other hand has 10/14 so it'll hit me 71% of his attacks. Very simplified. There are parry bonuses and covers involved in that specific algorithm. Also your basic fighting skill is added 1 per 10 in skill, so if you have fighting 59 you have a CR of 4+5.9=9.9 in base CR. Monsters have their type modifying base CR, making Champion creatures have maybe double the figure of the standard type.

A lot of things also affect the combat rating before that algorithm. Things such as footing, if you are prone, certain combat moves affect it negatively, being flanked, height distance to target, focusing, being drunk.. things like that. And also the kingdom bonus.

Now, in Player versus Player combat the base fighting skill is added 1 point per 5 in skill instead, so a player with 99 fighting skill would have like 23.98 in base CR and one with 50 fighting skill would have CR 14.

So how much is the kingdom bonus? The kingdom bonus is 2 if your kingdom has less than 10% of the server population. It is 1 if the kingdom has 20% or less of the population.

Source: http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/2099-comment-on-the-kingdom-bonus-bug/

So no, I don't think I was overstating anything... initial CR is based on FS. CR is modified by weapon/shield skill/stance as appropriate to determine your actual/current CR. Random Number Generator rolls 01 to 100 (using simple numbers here) and if it checks out, you hit your target (or parry/dodge/block)

Ranged vs. Melee (if you break them out as completely separate systems) would both need an equivalant as a base to the combat calculation, and modified by the additional skills as appropriate. Otherwise balancing becomes a much larger issue.

As to archery "double dipping", melee gets that same "double dipping" as it stands now. But in reality, neither does. FS establishes a base CR for your character, everything else adds/subtracts from this base value and it is then compaired against the target(s) CR and modifiers with the RNG being rolled to determine the outcome.

TL;DR There is absolutely no reason that an archer's offensive CR calculation can't be modified to be effective without fighting skill being involved in the equation (if it even is now). Once that is removed, there is absolutely no reason for FS gains through archery kills. They are unrelated.

You're right, by that same argument, melee could be calculated the same way. So you're really wanting to do away with FS altogether?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Might want to read the CR link I posted.. considering Rolf explains how it works by code...

Combat Rating system info from Rolf:

First of all, the bonus is applied to something that is called Combat Rating or CR for short in the system. Every creature has one. It is very similar to the concept of levels in other games, just that it fluctuates a lot more in wurm. It is the basis for calculating the chance to hit another creature. Players have a base combat rating of 4.

If the troll I am fighting has CR 10 and I have CR 4 I have about 4/(10+4) chance to hit the troll, or 29% every attack. The troll on the other hand has 10/14 so it'll hit me 71% of his attacks. Very simplified. There are parry bonuses and covers involved in that specific algorithm. Also your basic fighting skill is added 1 per 10 in skill, so if you have fighting 59 you have a CR of 4+5.9=9.9 in base CR.

Now, in Player versus Player combat the base fighting skill is added 1 point per 5 in skill instead, so a player with 99 fighting skill would have like 23.98 in base CR and one with 50 fighting skill would have CR 14.

So no, I don't think I was overstating anything... initial CR is based on FS. CR is modified by weapon/shield skill/stance as appropriate to determine your actual/current CR. Random Number Generator rolls 01 to 100 (using simple numbers here) and if it checks out, you hit your target (or parry/dodge/block)

I must not have been explaining myself very well, yes I was using napkin math but I thought it would easily transfer to the actual implementation (it does). CR has a base of 4, and then is improved by your *fighting* skill. What I'm saying is, stop basing it only on fighting skill no matter what. When you're using a bow, calculate your CR bonus from 4+(Archery/10) instead of 4+(FS/10).

Here is the reasoning (once again). CR based purely on fighting skill makes it so that you HAVE to gain FS through archery, or you'd lose your accuracy and damage (which is silly anyway, why isn't it more dependent on weapon skills instead of some "overall level" type skill, something Wurm attempts to avoid).

If you break this preconceived notion that you HAVE to gain FS in order to increase this overall level (or CR) we can separate things that don't make sense, i.e. shooting things from a boat all day long and then walking up to a crocodile with 1 skill in sword and shield and beating its face off.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is ridiculous, -1

What would stop people from getting animals to dying with archery and then go finish it up in melee to get fs anyway?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Actually I'd be okay with that. As long as the other changes went in

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If you go a little further back in the discussion you'll see where I posted that you can collect literally thousands of arrows just by traveling along shorelines watching for arrows in the ocean and 5-10 tiles in from shore because this method of gaining FS is so lucrative most people don't even pick them up. Without replying to every single reason you listed about arrows being a limiting factor, I think this fact kind of covers them all.

If you saw these arrows on epic I'm quite sure that they are remnants of boat pvp that happens before the two parties get into range for hand-to-hand combat or boat vs land pvp. In such a case retrieving all these arrows is the last thing that a combatant would bother about (although if they can actually spend that time they will try to get them back). Most arrows that I have found in water were usually in too deep water to be retrieved. So they are not arrows shot by hunters.

If some of them were shot by hunters I can tell you that the amount of creatures that you can find with a boat is way smaller than the amount of creatures that you can find inland with a horse. And it is usually not worth to do a boat trip for such a small number of targets. Even then a creature will wander around every time that it gets hit by an arrow and uneven ground can hide it in a way that will make it impossible for you to keep shooting it without disembarking. So in general boat hunting would be more inefficient that hunting on your horse with/without a boat.

Possible exception:

Any aggros that have you in aggro range but cannot reach you due to the water. If they stand locked in their place that makes them easy prey but it's a problem of the creature AI (they should try to go away if they can't attack the player that is hurting them) and not a problem with archery.

In any case useful arrows are NOT as expendable as you claim. You can ask any fletcher/archer/fighter or even try it yourself if you don't believe me.

I'm not quite sure about these arguments, all of these problems and more apply to melee weapons. Trolls and crocs take 3x as many hits with melee weapons as spiders do also, except with melee you're taking damage this entire time its taking 3x as long, and if you aggro additional mobs (as opposed to being on a boat safely out of range) the additional adds are ganking you.

I have explained in detail why these limitations are important in my previous post and you will see that they also make boat-hunting inefficient, if you read them you will also understand that they are actually problems that do not affect hand-to-hand combat in a similar way. Yes armor is a common problem in both cases BUT...

On armored mobs if an arrow doesn't do any damage it also has an increased chance to get broken(and yes even 80ql arrows can be broken). You will have to spend more arrows on average to take down an armored mob and the chances of retrieving all your arrows is much smaller as it keeps wandering around while you hit it. And as I have told you in my previous post arrows are your ammo. Once you run out of them your bow becomes useless. And they are NOT expendable. If your health goes down you can retreat, heal and attack again, no matter how many times you will miss or see your attacks glancing off your target's armor you will still be able to try another hit. If you run out of arrows you don't have a way to keep hitting your target with your bow unless you go back home to resupply yourself. So this is a significant difference.

Archery and its subskill for your selected bow type already cover everything needed for your ranged offensive combat rating calculation, fighting skill does not need to be taken into account at all to figure out how much damage you deal or your accuracy with a bow. Why does longbow get to double dip from both the archery AND fighting skill, when fighting skill also includes dodging, blocking, and melee accuracy and damage benefits as well? You shouldn't be learning dodging, melee accuracy, melee dmg, or shield blocking, by firing at something with a bow and arrow from 25 tiles away on a boat.

It looks like that you have been misinformed a bit.

What affects damage:

Bow, bow string, arrows, height difference and the part of the target that you hit and possibly some small random value(could it be distance? I don't know). Your archery/bow/FS skill doesn't have any effect on damage.

What affects accuracy:

Bow, bow string, arrows, distance, light conditions archery/bow skill. Your relative CR to your target's CR (as it could be calculated by comparing your FS with your target's FS) has no effect according to my experience. If it had I think that I would have observed significant difference in the accuracy against rats/wolves/trolls.

But in any case if relative FS-related CR has an effect on this (according to my knowledge it doesn't) I agree that it shouldn't.

After having explained why archery is NOT overpowered I'll check a few suggestions (despite agreeing with the fact that there is no need to do realism related changes if there is balance).

Suggestion 1:

FS should have a reduced effect in hand-to-hand combat as you can gain it by archery too.

Problem:

Fighting subskills and shield skills or characteristics would become much more important. The result could be described in one phrase: "foal-fighters, foal-fighters everywhere" or "fight with a poor foal for days and you'll be killing trolls like a boss".

Suggestion 2:

Give no FS to someone who kills something by using archery.

Problem 1:

Someone can get his target to 5% through archery and finish it in hand-to-hand combat and get the FS. Is it realistic? NO. Why? Because you can't get the same hand-to-hand combat skill by engaging with a target for 10 seconds with someone who had to dodge and return many more hits.

Problem 2:

Currently the only reason for an archer to KILL mobs by shooting arrows on them is the FS that they give. In the past shooting shafts on creatures for archery skill was deemed by Rolf as "exploitish" and led to skill trimming. Removing this "gift" would make people trying to find more ways to grind archery by shooting practically-immortal creatures and Rolf would have an extra headache to implement ways to detect and prevent such things.

Suggestion 3:

Make archery like FS (gain skill only by killing a creature).

Problem 1:

A lot of players would reduce the target's health to 5% in hand-to-hand combat and finish it with 1 arrow to conserve arrows. They would also get the same skill with someone who would have spent a lot more arrows.

Problem 2:

We already nag about not having enough creatures to kill for weapon skill, doubling that amount for every archer would make this problem even worse.

TLDR version: The problem with boat-hunters does NOT exist, finding arrows in the sea doesn't mean that there are archers getting tons of FS by shooting creatures from a boat. Even if there are people doing so, this method is NOT efficient. Arrows are NOT that expendable and archery is NOT overpowered. In terms of realism: YES kills gained through archery shouldn't make you considerably better at hand-to-hand combat BUT there are no solutions that have no drawbacks. If it is already balanced why should we change it to be more difficult/realistic? And last but not least: If it is so overpowered why we don't see everyone doing this in order to become a wurmian super-soldier?

If the TLDR version doesn't help read the whole wall of text :P (and please not just the bold).

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If you saw these arrows on epic I'm quite sure that they are remnants of boat pvp that happens before the two parties get into range for hand-to-hand combat or boat vs land pvp. In such a case retrieving all these arrows is the last thing that a combatant would bother about (although if they can actually spend that time they will try to get them back). Most arrows that I have found in water were usually in too deep water to be retrieved. So they are not arrows shot by hunters.

If some of them were shot by hunters I can tell you that the amount of creatures that you can find with a boat is way smaller than the amount of creatures that you can find inland with a horse. And it is usually not worth to do a boat trip for such a small number of targets. Even then a creature will wander around every time that it gets hit by an arrow and uneven ground can hide it in a way that will make it impossible for you to keep shooting it without disembarking. So in general boat hunting would be more inefficient that hunting on your horse with/without a boat.

Possible exception:

Any aggros that have you in aggro range but cannot reach you due to the water. If they stand locked in their place that makes them easy prey but it's a problem of the creature AI (they should try to go away if they can't attack the player that is hurting them) and not a problem with archery.

In any case useful arrows are NOT as expendable as you claim. You can ask any fletcher/archer/fighter or even try it yourself if you don't believe me.

Tonight I left my settlement with 14 hunting arrows and 28 war arrows (which I found on previous hunts), 66.xx fighting skill, 30 longbow and 40 archery from grinding on archery targets.

I came home with 71.02 FS, 49.47 archery, 35.63 long bow, and 3 quivers (found 2 empty quivers on a shore), 114 hunting arrows, and 151 war arrows.

Yes I'm on epic, no, there is no way they were remnants of a sea battle. Most of them were in large clumps on a single tile, 25% of them were IN corpses of monsters already laying on the ground or bonus ones i hadn't fired into my own kills. I did all of this grinding hunting from my boat, brought 10 kg of cotton with me, came home with 8.90 kg.

I killed a champion troll and many champs and greenish of other types with said < 35 long bow skill, while in 0 danger of dying.

Do that with 40 longsword / shield / normal fighting. I couldn't even take on a champion troll now, with 71 FS, much less in 2 minutes, much much less without taking any damage. (I'd die.)

I have explained in detail why these limitations are important in my previous post and you will see that they also make boat-hunting inefficient, if you read them you will also understand that they are actually problems that do not affect hand-to-hand combat in a similar way. Yes armor is a common problem in both cases BUT...

On armored mobs if an arrow doesn't do any damage it also has an increased chance to get broken(and yes even 80ql arrows can be broken). You will have to spend more arrows on average to take down an armored mob and the chances of retrieving all your arrows is much smaller as it keeps wandering around while you hit it. And as I have told you in my previous post arrows are your ammo. Once you run out of them your bow becomes useless. And they are NOT expendable. If your health goes down you can retreat, heal and attack again, no matter how many times you will miss or see your attacks glancing off your target's armor you will still be able to try another hit. If you run out of arrows you don't have a way to keep hitting your target with your bow unless you go back home to resupply yourself. So this is a significant difference.

The "ammo" of a melee fighter is cotton, and you need much more of it per mob as a melee fighter than arrows for an archer. When you run out of it you have to go home at half health.

It looks like that you have been misinformed a bit.

What affects accuracy:

Bow, bow string, arrows, distance, light conditions archery/bow skill. Your relative CR to your target's CR (as it could be calculated by comparing your FS with your target's FS) has no effect according to my experience. If it had I think that I would have observed significant difference in the accuracy against rats/wolves/trolls.

But in any case if relative FS-related CR has an effect on this (according to my knowledge it doesn't) I agree that it shouldn't.

Combat Rating system info from Rolf:

First of all, the bonus is applied to something that is called Combat Rating or CR for short in the system. Every creature has one. It is very similar to the concept of levels in other games, just that it fluctuates a lot more in wurm. It is the basis for calculating the chance to hit another creature. Players have a base combat rating of 4.

If the troll I am fighting has CR 10 and I have CR 4 I have about 4/(10+4) chance to hit the troll, or 29% every attack. The troll on the other hand has 10/14 so it'll hit me 71% of his attacks. Very simplified. There are parry bonuses and covers involved in that specific algorithm. Also your basic fighting skill is added 1 per 10 in skill, so if you have fighting 59 you have a CR of 4+5.9=9.9 in base CR.

According to Rolf's post that you quoted earlier FS is absolutely factored in to the hit% calculation because its your CR vs mob CR, and yours is 4+(FS/10). However I agree with you, in my experience that's not how it works, its MORE powerful than that. With only 70 FS, 40 archery, and 35 long bow, I'm getting approximately 90% accuracy vs trolls. This is insanity. With the same FS and 55 longsword skill I miss more often than I hit a troll.

Suggestion 1:

FS should have a reduced effect in hand-to-hand combat as you can gain it by archery too.

Problem:

Fighting subskills and shield skills or characteristics would become much more important. The result could be described in one phrase: "foal-fighters, foal-fighters everywhere" or "fight with a poor foal for days and you'll be killing trolls like a boss".

Since the evidence suggests that hand-to-hand combat is already inferior to archery in a skill by skill comparison, why would we nerf it even further by lowering the amount FS helps in melee fighting? And yes, I also would not like to see "foal fighters" everywhere, on this we agree.

Suggestion 2:

Give no FS to someone who kills something by using archery.

Problem 1:

Someone can get his target to 5% through archery and finish it in hand-to-hand combat and get the FS. Is it realistic? NO. Why? Because you can't get the same hand-to-hand combat skill by engaging with a target for 10 seconds with someone who had to dodge and return many more hits.

Problem 2:

Currently the only reason for an archer to KILL mobs by shooting arrows on them is the FS that they give. In the past shooting shafts on creatures for archery skill was deemed by Rolf as "exploitish" and led to skill trimming. Removing this "gift" would make people trying to find more ways to grind archery by shooting practically-immortal creatures and Rolf would have an extra headache to implement ways to detect and prevent such things.

When you got to my suggestion in this list I almost laughed out loud as I read the problems, not trying to be insulting at all, its just that they are as weak as I would expect them to be because I have thought this through a lot and there are no holes in my logic.

Problem 1: a.) The coding mechanic already exists for awarding partial skill gains based on contribution. If you take something down to dying with your bow and then finish it off with your sword then it could EASILY be coded to only give a fraction of full FS for that creature.

b.) I wouldn't really mind even if it did give full FS, switching weapons twice for every creature is tedious, it would most likely require the person to get out of the boat, and from what I've seen from "shore shooters" they absolutely don't want to be bothered to have to do this much work currently.

Problem 2: Make bow skill gains function just like melee weapon skill gains, and archery skill gains function just like fighting skill gains. People would kill mobs to gain archery, and to get their "uber expensive" arrows back (because shafts would do no damage, and therefore award no skill)

Suggestion 3:

Make archery like FS (gain skill only by killing a creature).

Problem 1:

A lot of players would reduce the target's health to 5% in hand-to-hand combat and finish it with 1 arrow to conserve arrows. They would also get the same skill with someone who would have spent a lot more arrows.

Problem 2:

We already nag about not having enough creatures to kill for weapon skill, doubling that amount for every archer would make this problem even worse.

Problem 1: Same fix as above, simply award skill as a ratio based on contribution, the mechanic already exists and would be simple to port over.

Problem 2: That problem was fixed a long while back to my knowledge, if you want to kill creatures, there are ALWAYS creatures waiting to be killed. This is how every skill in the game works, nothing is handed to you simply because its hard to get a hold of a certain resource.

TLDR version: The problem with boat-hunters does NOT exist, finding arrows in the sea doesn't mean that there are archers getting tons of FS by shooting creatures from a boat. Even if there are people doing so, this method is NOT efficient. Arrows are NOT that expendable and archery is NOT overpowered. In terms of realism: YES kills gained through archery shouldn't make you considerably better at hand-to-hand combat BUT there are no solutions that have no drawbacks. If it is already balanced why should we change it to be more difficult/realistic? And last but not least: If it is so overpowered why we don't see everyone doing this in order to become a wurmian super-soldier?

If the TLDR version doesn't help read the whole wall of text :P (and please not just the bold).

I don't know why we don't see more of them, but I think I've proven that it works. There was nothing inefficient or slow about what I did tonight, and my disappointment level is both high, yet unsurprising. The results of my experiment are exactly what I assumed they would be.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

OP argument is full of holes and refuses to listen to any outside idea. Archery is related to fighting, end of discussion.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

OP argument is full of holes and refuses to listen to any outside idea.

As far as I know the OP hasn't posted in quite some time, and I listen to ideas, thus far they've all just not held against the logic of the suggestion, explicitly state where you see a hole and I will tell you the elegant and logical fix.

Archery is related to fighting, end of discussion.

If you're looking for an argument that is full of holes, this is it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

OP argument is full of holes and refuses to listen to any outside idea. Archery is related to fighting, end of discussion.

Aiming a bow has nothing to do with face to face combat and a seperation of those skills would be common sense.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If Fighting skill had always been called "Melee Fighting", yet every mechanic and calculation was exactly as it exists now, you would agree with the OP.

That is the sweetest and simplest way to break down this argument.

(Also, because of the way the benefits of Fighting work, Melee Fighting would be more accurate)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this