Archery

[Achae Eanstray]

In lieu of this ongoing topic in Mantis: http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=9229 i.e. Feedback on Archery, I thought it was best to have the discussion here in a proper discussion forum rather then on Mantis as it seems to be evolving there. Most of the ideas and points raised have been mentioned there.. take a little time to read them over, perhaps more ideas can be added.

[Evie]

So i know my mage has bad stats ie agility and dex , and I know that there should be a lag set up so you cant shoot and run at the same time.
However if a target is selected to be shot with a bow, even if the target is behind a hedge or something else so hyou are not firing. My character still moves like sludge. This which has been deemed 'archery lag" seems to be getting worse and worse. My character takes one step for every three of the monsters. Its quite ridiculous to just stand there and get ghosted time after time. I repeatedly press the keys to move to no avail. Is any other archers having this same issue? Like there character is walking in a muddy bog?

[Velisai]

The main problem seems to be that you can't run more than one step at a time as your char just continues to fire as soon as you reach the next tile. That leaves you with little control over your char compared to anything we are used to.

If possible, the delay should come before the actual shot, not after and it should be possible to abort and run anytime. This would allow archers to escape more quickly, while still hindering the ability to fire while running as was intended.

Sounds simple, probably is not. Hope this can be implemented without any big problems.

[Jupiter]

Sounds simple, probably is not. Hope this can be implemented without any big problems.

It is simply not possible.
My idea was to make something similar to crafts: There is a certain amount of time before the shoot is executed. If you move before the shoot, the action is just aborted. That would make shooting and running at he same time impossible without the movement prevention after the shoot. However, that cannot be done currently and it is not sure if we will have the possibility an time soon (if at all).

[Evie]

So my new grumble.. now i just dont move at all shooting the bow. i hit the key to move 10 items maybe and my character never moved kept firing while a nightmare picked her off. Is this my system or is everyones archers getting paralysis? I have had this happen more than once and it seems to get worse . and yes i was hitting the right key to move :S double checked that.

[Annabeth]

So my new grumble.. now i just dont move at all shooting the bow. i hit the key to move 10 items maybe and my character never moved kept firing while a nightmare picked her off. Is this my system or is everyones archers getting paralysis? I have had this happen more than once and it seems to get worse . and yes i was hitting the right key to move :S double checked that.

Yeah, happens with me too. Every single time I've been to the cross lately has been due to this weird kind of paralysis. That the server has lag doesn't help very much either, so a feature like this really isn't needed to make it even worse. (And I know it's server side when it comes to lag, since both my internet connection and computer is pretty much as good as it gets without spending ridiculous amounts of money, and has no problem with more demanding programs)

[Achae Eanstray]

I suggest removing the freeze totally. The latest nerf attempt at archery, that originally worked beautifully after the VBU before the kick has reduced all attempts to make this a viable weapon to nill. Having played an archer in other games.. mainly UO, I don't/didn't find it over-powered. Perhaps the problem is the melee warrior's are underpowered? Most are of the opinion that melee warriors need more "group" action where mages and archers can be more solitary however, if Illa wishes to make all fighters "group", there are other alternatives.

Having a highly skilled archer (high for Illa) pre-VBU which was also a highly skilled melee warrior, I can say for certain archery is worse now then pre-VBU. I would suggest totally removing the latest "redo"/freeze attempt in archery. If you wish to reduce the effectiveness simply slightly reduce the amount of solid hits or the effectiveness of the hits with normal arrows making the "special" arrows only have the higher end hits. This would reduce archery only slightly, still make it effective as a weapon and keep archers from getting sent to the cross due to the freeze and also add another money sink in specialty arrows.

Address archery in other varied ways besides reducing a nice graphic and making this weapon totally useless.

[Mephistopheles]

I'm in agreeance with Achae, I think the lagg/freeze is counterproductive, since archers are rather underpowered as is. they can be easily taken down by any heavily armored warrior, but are good against medium just like with the weapons. as for boosting warriors.. ehh I wouldnt complain about it lol but it may not be the best thing to do.

[Uhuru]

Have any of you gone one on one against a player? Archers versus warrior? We have. Three archers, one warrior. First off, targeting the warrior, who is running all over and not standing still for us was difficult. He was running in and attacking and running out. So, just getting him targeted was bad enough. Then he'd run out of range and we'd lose any target lock we had. All of this before we even try to move. But good, no target lock, we can run now. Yippee. So we chase him down. Finally get near him, get a target lock, he runs up and nearly ghosts one of us then takes off. But we can't run after him, we are locked in place. Can't move. He takes off, running around in circles and continues to attack the person/character that is already injured. He's running out and back so as to avoid arrows and doing quite a lot of damage in the mean time. He finally runs off and we lose our locks and can move once again.

I think before anyone does anything, and worries too much about how a poor warrior will survive, first they need to actually try it out firsthand. This warrior was a beginning character with low level stats. As soon as he attacked Uhuru and she drew her sword (not even in armor, just the sword), he had had enough and knew it was game over as she took him down very quickly. I think this one incident is VERY telling for the whole archery system.

I'm quite serious, if you haven't tried and tested it firsthand, with live people/characters, 3 archers on 1 warrior, you should. Then we will open this discussion up wide.

[Jupiter]

Removing the "freeze" is no option. A player meele fighter would have no chance at all against archers then, for the could run and shoot at the same time. You can make other proposals but that is certainly not an option.

Furthermore, I am quite happy with the archery as it is. To me, it is a lot more fun than pre-vbu.

[Mr.Oldie]

I was going to suggest "aiming time" instead of "Freezing time". but then i saw this:

If possible, the delay should come before the actual shot, not after and it should be possible to abort and run anytime. This would allow archers to escape more quickly, while still hindering the ability to fire while running as was intended.

My idea was to make something similar to crafts: There is a certain amount of time before the shoot is executed. If you move before the shoot, the action is just aborted. That would make shooting and running at he same time impossible without the movement prevention after the shoot.

I do not know the mechanics that are being used so i might just be blabbering here.
But;
there is currently a mana bar that is not being of no use at all to any one.
Couldnt this be used as a "charge up"/ "aiming" bar thus creating some kind of bridge to the crafting idea?
The crafting already gets aborted if the crafter moves. so it might not be as hard. Just my thought .

Even after creation of magic system this charge up could be in use as most characters wont have any use of mana. Also the charge up for mage skills can still be still be shown as an over lay to the blue mana bar with some other shade of blue (Aquamarine perhaps?)

ohh by the way the charge up/aiming should only be there after the first instance of shooting regardless of the distance weapon used. the rest of the shooting be governed by the weapons speed alone.

As i said i might just be blabbering without understanding the mechanics. Jupiter if you can explain the mechanics perhaps others can provide some idea to circumvent the difficulty in using the "aiming time" idea.

[Uhuru]

Removing the "freeze" is no option. A player meele fighter would have no chance at all against archers then, for the could run and shoot at the same time. You can make other proposals but that is certainly not an option.

Furthermore, I am quite happy with the archery as it is. To me, it is a lot more fun than pre-vbu.

If three fairly decent archers, at least two with gemmed bows, cannot take on a weak new character and win, then I believe there is a serious issue. Archery is not working well. From what you've said, it sounds like you've been using the archery skill. If not, then you shouldn't be happy with so many users complaining about it.

[Raina Narethil]

Rebalancing the power level of the Archer since, warriors can currently solo high level creatures (( Giant ghostbeast )) and Archers can't fight off lower level creatures easily.

As far as the freeze is concerned there is a bug report in mantis that may help solve this issue as a player doesn't get double wammied by the fire delay and the current bug found.

[Jupiter]

and Archers can't fight off lower level creatures easily.

They can. I can kill diamond golems (easily) on my own. The generality in your statement is not valid.

If you want changes you need to consider the following problem: An archer must not be able to move and shoot at the same time (because that means nothing else but that no meele fighter has a chance against an archer).
As far as I can tell, there is no solution for that at the moment.

IThe crafting already gets aborted if the crafter moves. so it might not be as hard.

The functions called when something is used have a parameter called "ltstate". Since crafting is started by using an item, we can work with that. However, the function called when someone attacks someone else has no "ltstate" and therefore there can be no abortion of action. Adding the parameter would require server changes and is possibly anything else but easy and fast to be done. I (= no idea about the dark sorcery of server coding) can't even say if the results would justify the efforts or if it is possible at all.
And no, we cannot use mana. For two reasons: a) it was an ugly hack b) it is not possible to use it to imitate ltstate.

[Mr.Oldie]

How about this?:
A condition statement with in the FS to check if its a distance weapon that is equipped.
the function call done if this is true to intiate the "itsate".

In the usage of distance weapons cant the ammunitions needed be used as the item needed for "itstate".
If you are suggesting the usage of static tool then cant the coordinates of the characters or the tile in which he/she is standing be used as a parameter?
Wont this allow the same aborting sequence?

umm where did you add the freezing time? cant this set of code be added there? Am asking this because you said you dont do the server coding but you were the one who wrote the FS right.

Am just suggesting.
Seems there is tooo much complaints about the archery system. wont it be worth a try to check if this is possible? may be just in DS?

Again excuse if i've said anything by ignorance

[Mr.Oldie]

Guys
Try to be part of the solution instead of the problem.
Piling on complaints about the archery system wont do much good if no constructive suggestions are given to DEVs.
Suggest things even if you feel what you are saying is moronic like me.
Perhaps DEVs can spin-off ideas from it and work on those.


Asking for a complete removal of Freezing time isnt fair as i see the point that a running archer could always damage the other char/creature without getting hurt.
IF you really feel the need of removing it try thinking on how something similar can be used for the same purpose.

[Jupiter]

How about this?:
A condition statement with in the FS to check if its a distance weapon that is equipped.
the function call done if this is true to intiate the "itsate".

In the usage of distance weapons cant the ammunitions needed be used as the item needed for "itstate".
If you are suggesting the usage of static tool then cant the coordinates of the characters or the tile in which he/she is standing be used as a parameter?
Wont this allow the same aborting sequence?

umm where did you add the freezing time? cant this set of code be added there? Am asking this because you said you dont do the server coding but you were the one who wrote the FS right.

Am just suggesting.
Seems there is tooo much complaints about the archery system. wont it be worth a try to check if this is possible? may be just in DS?

Again excuse if i've said anything by ignorance

Not possible because ltstate is just not there. I cannot create that out of nowhere. The server has to hand that to the script. Otherwise the script cannot work with that. And it is handed only when a player actually uses (double clicks) an item. There is no other way, currently.

[Jupiter]

Maybe we found a solution. I won't bother you with details, but hopefully, that will be the result:

Archer A aims at target B. The archer can move around freely. But in order to shoot, he has stand still for a certain amount of time. There is no reduction of movepoints leading for him to stand till (actually, there will still be some reduction, but it will have comparable values to meele fighters), but if he keeps runnig around, he just won't shoot.

It is very much the same I wanted to have ltstate for. But now we figured out an other way (it will be ugly looking code, but hopefully working). However, that is just a plan. Dunno if it will actually work or blow to our face.

[Avariel]

I am very happy with your solution. And yes, archers can kill high level monsters on their own. Killed about 7 or 8 spider queens and 2 giant shadowrunners on my own today.

[Annabeth]

I am very happy with your solution. And yes, archers can kill high level monsters on their own. Killed about 7 or 8 spider queens and 2 giant shadowrunners on my own today.

Those are considered high level monsters? Thought monsters like sons of the mountain and black bone dragons were meant when people said high level monsters.

And while I'm on that note, three maxed out fighters with each their level 100, gemmed weapon, and stats that make for high damage outputs and hit rates, can't kill a son of the mountain together, which is utterly ridiculous as you can't seriously expect more people with that much skill to be available at the same time when you look at our playerbase, which means Yr maps are pretty much impossible right now...

[Jupiter]

Spider queens are so called level 7 monsters. They got sharp teeth. Or whatever spiders have.

Sons of the mountains are supposed to be ass kicking. That you cannot kill him with three chars is not bad, but good. That was our intention. However, stay on topic please.

[Uhuru]

Please, lets keep this thread focused on the subject of archery.

Jupiter, what you describe sounds good in theory, can't wait to see it up and running in action! Thank you for trying.

[Ufedhin]

Sons of the mountains are supposed to be ass kicking. That you cannot kill him with three chars is not bad, but good. That was our intention. However, stay on topic please.

Good very good that these" indomitable sons of the mountain" exist in the world .

And yes i like your archery solution Jupiter.

[Mr.Oldie]

Fingers crossed
Lets know when its updated into the game! or TS if it needs testing

[Achae Eanstray]

This is the solution found with UO also, it works very well there....hoping it will here.


edit: added the link from Mantis to here with hopeful solution...http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=9229

[Alrik]

Sounds good Jupiter. Much better than a frozen archer which is dinner for anything arround

[Raina Narethil]

I just tried to kill a diamond golem with another archer and melee fighter, if it was not for the melee fighter I doubt, myself and the other Archer would have defeated it.

Could you explain how you can, granted these two archers have high level skills, gems as well.

[Jupiter]

Could you explain how you can, granted these two archers have high level skills, gems as well.

Maybe your attributes aren't good, I don't know.

[Ufedhin]

liking archery again ,thanks dev's.

[Jupiter]

I wonder how since there was no update