pvp behavior after FoW and archer buff

Some PvPs can really be fun with the right opponent but most of the pvp's i had lately were against lighties who generally tend to think if you dont find me in the spot i've chosen for the engagement (usually not far away from their starting point) I will just sit the hole 10 minutes out. This is mostly directed towards elven players cause apparently they are almost the only ones pvping right now *cough* race balance, kiting *cough*.
Dont get me wrong. I am not complaining cause I'm losing cause thats still not the case. Most of the elves pvpving are still noobs. I am complaining because the latest changes have reinforced pvp behavior like camping and i cant blame them, cause camping with archers gives you a clear advantage over your opponent. The advantage of the first shot sometimes even shots, the advantage of unit positioning, the advantage not to deal with the crappy pathfinding and many things more. I have to run the hole distance every single battle to find them camping with their archers just waiting for the first unit to show up in their line of sight.
I could adjust my setup to this by bringing naked bait or dark arti, but it is still not the fun it used to be, cause my army is crippled by tier restrictions. I wish i could bring a cav scout, dark arti and archers all in one with some melee units as well but the tiers wont allow me to do that.

The advantage gained by camping with archers can only be overcome if you bring artillery and preferably cav yourself. If I would bring the exact same archer based setup as the camper and be foolish enough to approach his position instead of cowardly camping like he does, my melee units would be dead before i know it and my archers would die right afterwards cause I wouldnt be able to see his archers cause my melee is already dead whereas his isnt.

PvP can be more fun now but sadly most of the time it isnt, cause of very annoying player/elven behavior.

and well there is something need to be done with mostly archer armies in t1 and t2 in these tiers archers are killers on higher tier you can put some armor so thats not so havie but still des havy dmg

Someone in t3 just need to bring 3-4 archers and he wons, armor can't take 50 arrows huhu.

Well I am not happy with new changes, first making coops and solos bad and now ruining pvps fun too, I really want that archers get back to their original strenght and range, but to dont make they unuseful again, archers still should receive the +1missile strenght per level up and weapon research upgrade instant of giving they +3 melee per research they should receive +3 missile per research that sounds much better, actually this is enough bad that make elf the worst opponent in a pvp worst than dwarf and UD, I am not pvping anymore until they nerf those archers, 1 elf guy in pvp was able to kill 14 of my HI with 4 archers in 1 or 2 shots and that HI was having 59 armor near of the cap and 58 endurance, now archers are more powerful and useful that arty using less ap, most elf players are defending new changes because it benefict they in pvps making they get free wins only by brinding 4 archers or more, and they defend volume too because their units move faster having less trouble to engage the enemy. and about other changes I totally love FoW but dont like volume. but I want a multy select option to can select varius units in the same time to make for a human person possible to control all units in a havoc war is hard to control all units when they dont go where you want they to go for volume, is you use multy select and send your units to a same place they should automatically take positions respecting volume to dont ball up.

Or maybe reduce their movement... Like -2 or -3...

I don't want to see all archers nerfed in power because otherwise they will already lose their purpose in most pvps, seeing as bringing an archer means one less melee unit.

What I think could be good however:

-Lower elf archer speed to 15.

-Increase base AP of all archers by 10-20%.

-Increase AP cost of missile and range on archer items by 15-40%.

This will make archers more costly but not less effective. So instead of seeing in tier 2 a guy with 3 naked HI 6 archers he'd be more likely to have 2 HI 6 archers, much more manageable. And even bringing 1-2 archers would have a bigger cost to the melee army. I don't mind making archers more expensive, but other than elf archer movement I don't want to see them weakened or I believe their effect in battle will be too little to be worth bringing over melee.

Also, if we fix the archer problem we need to fix the HI problem too. They are very connected.

if it would be up to me i would reduce all archers speed to 12 . Reducing speed to 15 will not help because they still cant be caught.

Reducing move is a retarded idea, just because HI's cant be spammed and can't catch archers doesn't mean move needs to be reduced, game play is already slow...
There is something called movement banners, cavalry Lia/li and if you can't beat them, join them, simply use archer also....
Too much HI and li only in pvp previously, it used to be a gear on those two unit types and that's it, now finally range have a value and players need to think smart not just move forward with HI, promotes the use of variety of units. And reducing spd of archers makes it harder for players to catch a camping dark player with artillery and units surrounded around it(esp when scouting with cava to get ur excat location then using artillery area hit). If you still just want to spam geared HI and move forward, just reset to dwarf get yourself some movement banners and now your HI moves 17 Speed.....

Bblazer do not forget that items works for both sides, i can wear movement banner, my opponent can too, items will change nothing, besides i would vote for increasing ap archers and increasing for archers items (usually you need one gl bow to cap all offensive archers stat). Second i would make elfs archers less superior (or buff other archers), they are fastest, best firerate, best range, best stats, well it is kind of unfair to other races.

how about make all HI 10 spd all units same hp, all same caps,all same ability ....
It's the best archer in the game cause that is what elfs are. You choose a race that has weaker archers not anyone's business, Other races have different main unit type, if archer spd was reduced, HI spd must be 8 then, that would make things fair.

The problem is elven archers not only outshoot all other archers they also outrun every other race. Once the known kiters discover movement banners im screwed. Bringing archers against an elf can be a total waist of ap, cause elven archers beat them so badly you cant even make use of them.
Best thing for me to do is keep them back for a while to prevent the archer elf from kiting in the end.
What 6 naked elven archers do against a capped skellie hi is not funny. Within two rounds they shoot it to less than half its health and a quarter of their morale. Resulting in possible LoC dmg when they finally get in melee. And even against cavs elven archers are pretty effective.

My main concern is still that the new changes reinforce noob behavior sucking all the fun out of pvp. The infamous unit ball is back in form of a ball of elven archers guarded with 3 or even 4 hi, just waiting for you to engage, if need be all 10 minutes (i suppose. i've never actually let the time run out).

I dont agree with elf players, how I say before they will defend the idea of new archers boost, but I still dont understand how arrows can deal much more damage and kill more enemies than heavy axes, spears, longswords, claymores and cannons? there is supposed that archers deal low damage in most games, archers are just a support unit that can be of a tactical utility for everyone no only the elves, not to be a deadly shooter machines that can kill giant units with full armored plates in a single shoot the previus strenght of archers was good enought, I see my level 3 goblin archers killing sometimes 3-4 LIAs in a single shot that was good enough for me, I dont want super deadly archers who can deal more than 4 damage in pvp all the time and elven players saying "bring archers" elves know perfectly that their archers are so superior to all dark archers, and anyway is I bring archers or not I will lose in a ranged battle for being killed by kitting and camping, and others say too that sending cav is enought, but camper elf make a defense around their archers and cannot caught they, I dont have a chance to win against a elf with ranged units anymore for that.

Bblazer wrote:

how about make all HI 10 spd all units same hp, all same caps,all same ability ....
It's the best archer in the game cause that is what elfs are. You choose a race that has weaker archers not anyone's business, Other races have different main unit type, if archer spd was reduced, HI spd must be 8 then, that would make things fair.

I would agree with you that elfs should have the best archers but their LI and especially HI should be significantly worse than other races. Now Elfes have the best archers in game (the best in all possible stats) and no weak points, so assuming that people chose Elfes for archers their LI and HI should be nerfed.

Do you really want such change?

I dont think that other elven units are bad, their LI is good against all non-UD LI but I need to say that they suck against LIA but how rune say LIA must be superior than LI, and their HI isnt bad really, they have similar stat that human HI and have a better ability and have faster reaction than others HI that dont turn they into tanks, but they are deadly killers against varius units, their cav have 1 hp less than orc cav but they have better stats than orc cav, their LIA now have the faster reaction and are much better than other LIAs, and their arty have lower range, but allways deal good damage against any enemy, elves at this point is the best race of the game in my opinion having only good units and all well balanced only archers are OP now for the new strenght.

Regarding low level archers naked being too strong, starting missile/ missile hidden base strength could be reduced a bit and I wouldn't mind as an alternative to the previously mentioned AP increase of all things archer related. I very much agree that that low level/naked archers are way too strong against GL heavies (I had a similar experience as you Claud where my GL HI melted and fled under a horde of naked archers...).

I still think elf archers to 15 movement is good. But that is the only archer I believe movement should be changed on. The other archers should keep 15 speed, not move slower. Archers are supposed to be light-footed, not slower than LI. The only reason I accept elf archers being slower than elf LI is that it's otherwise a serious balance issue leaving them at 17 base speed.

Bobba wrote:

Archers are supposed to be light-footed.

And are supposed to deal low damage, are supposed to be a useful unit for varius situations but that deal low damage because they are supposed to have low strenght, because arrows should not pierce steel GL armors like paper, and endurance and armor are supposed to be useul stats and no a waste of ap. and arty is supposed to be superior than archers... Look like now archers ignore totally endurance and armor, because is they can kill 2 HI per shot is like they are killing 4 LIA but the difference is that the HI can wear armor and have higther endurance than LIA then why they suffer same or more damage? (-4health)

In real warfare, unlike movies like lord of the rings want to make us believe archers werent lightfooded. They were pretty immobile stationed behind the melee forces shooting a couple of rounds before the clash happened, getting mowed down by enemy cavalry not even fast enough to escape any kind of melee charging at them.
Reducing elven archers speed is needed to balance the game and probably something about the general effectiveness of archers against hi and cav as well. Cavs are the natural death sentence for any archer unit, in melee that is also true for the game, but their ranged attacks are a little too effective against cavs and hi now.

What about this one? Anything with more than 40 armor gets an additional defensive bonus against archer ranged attacks, cause at that point piercing the armor with arrows is pretty much impossible, archers would have to get either lucky or find the loop hole in the enemies armor.

Claudandus wrote:

In real warfare, unlike movies like lord of the rings want to make us believe archers werent lightfooded. They were pretty immobile stationed behind the melee forces shooting a couple of rounds before the clash happened, getting mowed down by enemy cavalry not even fast enough to escape any kind of melee charging at them.
Reducing elven archers speed is needed to balance the game and probably something about the general effectiveness of archers against hi and cav as well. Cavs are the natural death sentence for any archer unit, in melee that is also true for the game, but their ranged attacks are a little too effective against cavs and hi now.

What about this one? Anything with more than 40 armor gets an additional defensive bonus against archer ranged attacks, cause at that point piercing the armor with arrows is pretty much impossible, archers would have to get either lucky or find the loop hole in the enemies armor.

Of course cavalry will mow archers down, that's already how it is in the game. But archers tended to wear lighter armor and carried bows which weigh less than the huge chunks of metal the rest of the army were carrying around. So naturally, they were capable of a bit more motion than normal foot soldiers (not cavalry). So allowing them to remain at 15 speed just makes sense. But yes, cavalry and GL HI need some kind of bonus against archers. Currently they fall apart too fast against arrows.

Archers werent faster than any kind of foot soldier unless they ditched their bow.
I dont intend to make the game more realistic in that way, just something to consider for those who think archers should be like legolas.

my opinin

1 archers still should be able to move faster than hi but not faster than lia/li (may be thasame as slowest li)
2 i like idea of making archers (and archer gear) most costly maby thats the best idea this way you have to think how to defend your archer with mele units
3 maby lowering cav ap would make more blayers bring cav in pvp and that maby would solve archer idea
4 armour would not take all shoots but it would take some and in this time maby you will be able to engage mele

I think there are two solutions for cav.
1) reduce cav ap by a good amount. Something like 25%
2) reduce cav ap by a small amount and reduce effectiveness of archers on cav. I mean really in pve 4(they had been weakened by artillery) DL archers get 2 shots at my charging cav. On both shots they take out 1 HP. It's like it didn't matter if they had 4 or 16 units.

ohh i got an idea for cav maby they will ghet new abilyty becuse of fast moving

"cav units are moving very fast so archers and artylery cant aim apropirate"
3 lvl 30% of arrows miss
6lvl 40 % arrrows miss
9lvl 50% arrows miss
14lvl 55% arrows miss
20 lvl 60 % arrows miss

or something like that

I have another idea too, archers should cant shoot enemies at very close range and make archers take a delay aiming time every time they shoot first time is they stop shooting and start shooting again or is a archer change of target, first shot will take longer then all other shoots will be at normal speed and with reducing elf archers speed to 15 things will be better, but I still think that ranged attacks are so overpowered and deal more damage than CAV and arty at least against HI.

Ulises21 wrote:

I have another idea too, archers should cant shoot enemies at very close range and make archers take a delay aiming time every time they shoot first time is they stop shooting and start shooting again or is a archer change of target, first shot will take longer then all other shoots will be at normal speed and with reducing elf archers speed to 15 things will be better, but I still think that ranged attacks are so overpowered and deal more damage than CAV and arty at least against HI.

Dark artillery maybe. Light artillery on the other hand does a massive amount of damage to HI.

If anything it would make more sense if the closer the archers were the more powerful their volleys were. Considering the enemy is closer so they could aim more accurately and their arrows would hit with more velocity.