Archery

[Djironnyma]

it is indeed able to shoot with 1 sec per shoot (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9RGnujlkI) but normally your Char neigther stands in a hall nor fight against a big standing wall or is named Legolas. So in the setting of a battle against a small, moving (human) goal you would ever need more time to aim.

Anyway in the end it is not alone the question what would be realistic or cewl its more about Gamebalance. As already told its not wanted that archery is effective if you fight alone. If you compare two figthers in the same level - one archer and one close combat fighter the close combat figther should ever win, no matter if they fight against a monster or each other. But a team build of a close combat fighter(tank) and an archer should be much more stronger as two close combat fighters. Thats the idea you should keep in mind while discuss.

[Leena]

it is indeed able to shoot with 1 sec per shoot (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9RGnujlkI) but normally your Char neigther stands in a hall nor fight against a big standing wall or is named Legolas. So in the setting of a battle against a small, moving (human) goal you would ever need more time to aim.

Anyway in the end it is not alone the question what would be realistic or cewl its more about Gamebalance. As already told its not wanted that archery is effective if you fight alone. If you compare two figthers in the same level - one archer and one close combat fighter the close combat figther should ever win, no matter if they fight against a monster or each other. But a team build of a close combat fighter(tank) and an archer should be much more stronger as two close combat fighters. Thats the idea you should keep in mind while discuss.

Ok I see what you are looking for in archery, .. is it possible to make a archery range.. that new archers could shoot at targets relatively safely untill they can achieve at least some skill.

[Mephistopheles]

I was thinking in a FS perhaps you can set style to your fighting, kinda like old Runescape if any played it. There could be speedy, fast swinging/shooting, but innaccurate, Accuracy, a basic swing speed/shoot speed but just more accuracy, and then defensive, inaccurate because the character is focused on defense/ basic swinging/ shooting speed but innacurate.

I just thought of this, don't know if its possible to put into the scripts but it should provide some strategy for fighting and archers alike.

[Velisai]

As already told its not wanted that archery is effective if you fight alone.

It has been said that archers should never win 1 vs. 1 against a melee fighter. I don't remember reading anywhere. that they should suck so much you couldn't go anywhere on your own. Why would that be wanted even? There is already lots of incentive to fight in groups. Making some chars useless when on their own will only serve to remove such chars from the game, except for a few die hard fans of bows. If 1 second seems too fast for the staff, I imagine 2 seconds will work as well without being too frustrating.

As it is now, archers (except maybe for >90% skill with perfect attributes and gems) are close to useless. The melee fighter has killed your target before you fire a single shot half the time. Your target gets out of range. Your target gets too close. Something gets between you and your target, even if it only briefly crosses the line of sight, you start from 0 again. Some other monster, which the map is full of, tries to eat your behind while you aim. There are so many things that can interrupt you, that it happens way too often.

Even if you make archers support chars only, they still suck. You have to wait forever for them to hit anything, if they manage to get a shot off at all until you kill whatever you are attacking. Their arrows don't really do much damage against most of the difficult monsters. You always have to pay attention to not get in their way as they can't easily take another angle to attack from, like melee chars can. The long aim time just makes them far too unreliable to be effective as damage support.

[Hew Keenaxe]

Ok, I might as well pile on. I am a bow hunter, so for me a long delay to set up a shot is realistic. When hunting, I have to rely on stealth to get within range, then need time to knock an arrow, fully draw and aim. Aiming takes time to account for range, wind and obstacles that may be in the flight path. What bothers me with the current archery system is the lack of damage caused when a hit is scored. I can bring down the largest of game with one well placed shot. Heart it is down, lung it doesn't last long. Even a limb shot would severely harm my game. You try moving with a shaft of wood impaled through a muscle. Having to hit my target so many times they must look like a porcupine is frustrating. I understand that armor class leads to deflections, and missed shots happen but when a hit is landed it should count. Sure there is the desire to be able to fight fast and in close like Legolas, but if you want to do this you should be playing a melee character. As far as medieval lore, archers were terrifying in a support role. Watching arrows rain down from the sky or having an arrow streak towards you so fast you cant move in time, with force enough to pierce all but a good shield or the heaviest armor. So for me, the balance needs to be towards slow to shoot, good chance of deflection for those carrying a shield or wearing proper armor, fair chance to dodge if a high enough agility exists, but when a hit is scored it does real damage. As far as a shooting range goes, it is not necessary. Hunting game like cows, sheep and pigs will raise your skill from lower levels, then can be worked up from lesser monsters.

[Velisai]

You can't use stealth sneak up on game. There is nowhere to hide to take your time, placing a shot like you describe, as monsters are everywhere. If we want a more realistic game, there is a ton of stuff to change. If we want a fun archery system in line with what we have, we need aim times between 1 and 2 seconds.

[Hew Keenaxe]

You can't use stealth sneak up on game. There is nowhere to hide to take your time, placing a shot like you describe, as monsters are everywhere. If we want a more realistic game, there is a ton of stuff to change. If we want a fun archery system in line with what we have, we need aim times between 1 and 2 seconds.

Most times you can target a monster before it charges enabling you to get a shot off. If you miss or it doesn't do enough damage then yes you would need to retreat and reset. Or we could all have machine guns. In a support role, you would have time to reset without retreating. Since I only have low level archers, I am not sure if the range increases with higher levels, but it should. Taking long shots at foes that don't know you are there yet, is like stealth.

[Velisai]

In a support role, you would have time to reset without retreating.

Like I said before and for the reasons mentioned above, archers are almost useless, even in a support role when compared to melee fighters.

Most times you can target a monster before it charges enabling you to get a shot off.

If monsters charged you right away as they used to, you wouldn't get a shot off at all. As long as they wander around aimlessly as they do now, nothing will save them from a lone archer, unless you make it entirely impossible to shoot them. All you accomplish with long aim times is making it frustrating and time consuming to do.

If you raise range and damage to the point where an archer can kill a melee char before he even knows what hit him, you'll get the old client situation we had with mages. Whoever strikes first, wins. While that is realistic, it caused a lot of grief for a majority of players. Why repeat what has failed before instead of trying something that might actually work out if balanced right?

[Avariel]

My character was created as a sole archer, so at the moment he is sitting at the Inn and plays his pipes, because his archery skill is useless in a treasure hunt (Small and average treasure -> it takes too long to kill with a bow, so take the dagger / big and giant treasures -> I have to run too often to get a good shot and most creatures regenerate) , the reasons were well discribed by Velisai.

I would support both ideas, either shorten aiming time...
Or, as Hew proposed, make it hard to shoot and hit, but when you hit, especially high level archers, then there is real damage done.

I also would accept the state of archery before the last update, just, we need a change to the actual situation, otherwise archery is useless. ( and my character has skill >90% and a well gemmed, perfect bow )

Oh, and Hew, range increases with high level bows.

[GolfLima]

* an archer can prepare a shot also when not seeing the enemy (if he knows the position of the enemy) & can shout when the enemy becomes visible
* an archer dont need to wait for the preparation of the shot until he sees the enemy in the range of his bow
* an archer can use his arrows also as a puncture weapon / the bow as a club
* if an archer is only a supporter of close combat fighters (and may be later of mages) it makes no sense to play an archer (new players will be fustrated if they dont know that)

finally archering should be rebalanced, at the moment it is totally useless
( a combination of increasing damage and shorten aiming time sounds interesting )

[Tinuva Geogroda]

Well my two cents:

I can understand if you want to push archers into a support role, though as said before it is hard, frustrating and not known to new players.
Lets draw a parallel with other MMOs, while not a good comparison since Illarion has a whole different starting view their support characters are able to handle themselves alone up untill a certain level quite well.

I think an archer should be able to do the normal stuff themselves, just at the point where the close combatant needs help the archer needs the help of the close combatant too, but then in a different role for eachother.

[Annabeth]

Archery isn't as useless as above posts make it seem, at least not at end level with a gemmed end level bow. You can solo things with some difficulty. It is still pretty much useless to use at early and mid levels though, as it is barely worth it at end level at this point, and a hassle to learn. The aiming speed is really bad and should be shortened to 2 of those hand gestures, not 6.

[Jupiter]

Okay, two things:

1. The shooting time will be adjust. That was already said 4 days ago. Brining that up again and again won't accomplish anything.

2. That archers will always have an disadvantage against meele fighter is quiet obvious only the case for player vs. player. NOT for monster vs. players.

[nathi]

2. That archers will always have an disadvantage against meele fighter

Why?

is this general? What about a well trained archer (90-100% against) against a low or medium trained fighter?
If this is the basic understanding of the archery, no one will be interested to learn it, because you can better spend you time to learn a meele weapon, like it was before the VBU.
True, at the beginning after the VBU, archery was much to strong, many ran arround with bows, also low trained archers were strong. I feel that the difference between a medium and well trained archer isn't still noticeable, thats my personal experiance. Maybe there is a way to make archery more interesting and worthy to learn.

lg nathi

[Jupiter]

Distance fighters cannot shoot if their target is close to them. Therefore, they suck against meele fighters. That is nothing new.

[Alrik]

I agree that they should have a disadvantage if a melee fighter stands right before them, but in my opionion a distance fighter should be dangerous at distance. And at the moment, sometimes it is just a joke.

[Leena]

Archery isn't as useless as above posts make it seem, at least not at end level with a gemmed end level bow. You can solo things with some difficulty. It is still pretty much useless to use at early and mid levels though, as it is barely worth it at end level at this point, and a hassle to learn. The aiming speed is really bad and should be shortened to 2 of those hand gestures, not 6.

For some of us that are mid level with non-gemmed bows it is almost impossible to even skill up now (attribute argument aside that is a different issue). Cows were suggested but they will not train a mid level archer. I do look forward to what the developers come up with.. Yes before bows were way to strong.. but before the last update they had become a challenge but still something one could strive to learn. At this time the only archers that can even exist IG are those that were already masters with their Gemmed bows. I agree with Annabeth.. a high level archer should be much more efficient than a low one. Could than not be solved out with more damage being done by a high level archer than a low (I believe it is already) but still allowing a newer player, with the right attibutes, to be able to achieve mastery with time and training?

[Annabeth]

Archery isn't as useless as above posts make it seem, at least not at end level with a gemmed end level bow. You can solo things with some difficulty. It is still pretty much useless to use at early and mid levels though, as it is barely worth it at end level at this point, and a hassle to learn. The aiming speed is really bad and should be shortened to 2 of those hand gestures, not 6.

For some of us that are mid level with non-gemmed bows it is almost impossible to even skill up now (attribute argument aside that is a different issue). Cows were suggested but they will not train a mid level archer. I do look forward to what the developers come up with.. Yes before bows were way to strong.. but before the last update they had become a challenge but still something one could strive to learn. At this time the only archers that can even exist IG are those that were already masters with their Gemmed bows. I agree with Annabeth.. a high level archer should be much more efficient than a low one. Could than not be solved out with more damage being done by a high level archer than a low (I believe it is already) but still allowing a newer player, with the right attibutes, to be able to achieve mastery with time and training?

You can still level archery the same method warriors fight each other to train instead of facing dangerous monsters.

[Avariel]

Thank you for sorting the problem so quickly. The shorter aiming time seems good to me so far.

Ein großes Dankeschön.

[GolfLima]

thanks - new "delay" before shooting looks good
seems the archery problem is solved.

[Raina Narethil]

Agreed a big thank you is in order, the system is much better now from what I could test.

[nathi]

Thanks for change the delay time. …..but...I tested it now with some monsters and my 100% skilled archer with crossbow (high magical gems) is stronger with a simply sword with 50% skill. In order to shoot you have stand still a while (now its 3 or 4 "hands"), but this time is still to long if lot of another monsters around, the archer has to move all the time and the bow is really useless. Also if the monster moves behind a rock, a tree or another monster runs between, the counter stops immediately. For my char as a 100% archer its a disadvantage, I am superfluous in map hunting and other monster hunts. Spider queens for example are impossible, the healing is faster than a high skilled archer. I know all these was written before. The archer system was changed now several times in Illa. I understood it should be so realistic as possible, but what is with the another fighting skill, does someone speak about realistic there? In this point the game lost the fun for me. Please don't see this post a bad complaint, its just my feedback how I feel as a archer player. Result is, move main stream, to sword fighter.

nathi

[Jupiter]

I understood it should be so realistic as possible,

No. I never aim for realism but for intelligibility.

There will be probably further adjustments. I don't knwo if I will increase the rate of fire or the strength, yet.

[Avariel]

Danke für die Veränderung, einfach wunderbar. -- Thank you for the change, just wonderful.

[Ufedhin]

Archery is much better thanks!

[Avariel]

Seit dem letzten Update kann Avariel nicht mehr über Blumen, Grasbüschel oder Pilze schießen... ist das beabsichtigt?

Since the last update Avariel cant shoot over flowers, grass or mushrooms... is that meant to be so?

[Achae Eanstray]

Seit dem letzten Update kann Avariel nicht mehr über Blumen, Grasbüschel oder Pilze schießen... ist das beabsichtigt?

Since the last update Avariel cant shoot over flowers, grass or mushrooms... is that meant to be so?

This issue is addressed in Mantis already.

http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=9970



With all the changes that have taken place regarding archery and monsters including the pending changes with the awaited updates I believe as of this point the concern is targeting and that is also on Mantis so I'll lock this topic for now, but it can be opened at a later date upon request or another topic opened not as generalized.

Thanks for all your feedback!