Artillery - UP

Speaking as one who has neither cavalry nor artillery, and probably never will, it appears to me that cavs are OP, and artillery are UP. I’ll discuss artillery here, and save cavalry for another post.

I’ve never fought alongside artillery, and everyone I know who has them says they’re useless. Going up against them, it seems pretty much any infantry unit can boldly approach one and expect to win. Archers tear them to pieces.

Artillery ought to strike fear into any opponent. With the possible exception of cavs, no single unit of comparable experience should expect to survive an open assault on artillery across open terrain. One direct hit should be enough to rout a unit of LI or archers, much of the time. A company of 3 or 4 LI should be able to take them down, but only with heavy losses.

On the other hand, they should be decidedly inaccurate. Attacking an engaged enemy with artillery should be just as likely to destroy or rout your friend. An extremely lucky LI might survive an assault, simply because the artillery keeps missing completely. And even a single LI should have no trouble overwhelming artillery if they make it there alive.

So far this discussion describes generalized artillery, but it would make sense for different races to have dramatically different kinds. The dwarven arbalest could be as accurate as an archer, and damage 10 units in a straight line, but have little or no effect over a solid obstacle. (I think of an arbalest, or bolt thrower, as being like a big crossbow, hence better suited for dwarves than elves.) Demon artillery could throw burning coals, having shorter range than other artillery, but causing damage over a wider area. Taking the idea a step further, elven mages could cast fireballs and/or lightning bolts, and undead could generate clouds of nerve gas.

Artillery also begs for richer terrain effects, particularly the advantages of higher ground. But that’s a topic for another post.

HoopyFrood wrote:

Speaking as one who has neither cavalry nor artillery, and probably never will, it appears to me that cavs are OP, and artillery are UP. I’ll discuss artillery here, and save cavalry for another post.

I’ve never fought alongside artillery, and everyone I know who has them says they’re useless. Going up against them, it seems pretty much any infantry unit can boldly approach one and expect to win. Archers tear them to pieces.

Artillery ought to strike fear into any opponent. With the possible exception of cavs, no single unit of comparable experience should expect to survive an open assault on artillery across open terrain. One direct hit should be enough to rout a unit of LI or archers, much of the time. A company of 3 or 4 LI should be able to take them down, but only with heavy losses.

On the other hand, they should be decidedly inaccurate. Attacking an engaged enemy with artillery should be just as likely to destroy or rout your friend. An extremely lucky LI might survive an assault, simply because the artillery keeps missing completely. And even a single LI should have no trouble overwhelming artillery if they make it there alive.

So far this discussion describes generalized artillery, but it would make sense for different races to have dramatically different kinds. The dwarven arbalest could be as accurate as an archer, and damage 10 units in a straight line, but have little or no effect over a solid obstacle. (I think of an arbalest, or bolt thrower, as being like a big crossbow, hence better suited for dwarves than elves.) Demon artillery could throw burning coals, having shorter range than other artillery, but causing damage over a wider area. Taking the idea a step further, elven mages could cast fireballs and/or lightning bolts, and undead could generate clouds of nerve gas.

Artillery also begs for richer terrain effects, particularly the advantages of higher ground. But that’s a topic for another post.

Sorry, I'm afraid I must disagree - though, to my knowledge, artillery are UP, I'd rather not see something quite capable of simply destroying divisions, or, moreover, of balancing that by making it so luck-based. Aside from the obvious, that it kind of makes every faction's artillery engineers look bad, I'd say such would add a bit too much chance for my tastes. Regardless, I've not used artillery yet, so I refuse to comment on what could be done to "Fix" it

AgentAAA wrote:

Regardless, I've not used artillery yet, so I refuse to comment on what could be done to "Fix" it

Bah, humbug. I'm fine with you telling me my idea stinks, but only if you come up with a better one.

You think artillery is going to be more used if its a "lucky one shot" (low accuracy high effect)? I think no one would use such an unreliable and unsafe power.

HoopyFrood wrote:

AgentAAA wrote:

Regardless, I've not used artillery yet, so I refuse to comment on what could be done to "Fix" it

Bah, humbug. I'm fine with you telling me my idea stinks, but only if you come up with a better one.

the issue is that, given we've no personal experience with it, it's difficult to label an actual problem with it. From what I've heard from people like Yan, the issue isn't that the artillery's doing so much damage - it's actually the fact it's both currently inaccurate and easy to flank with cavalry, similar to archers.

Mephy wrote:

You think artillery is going to be more used if its a "lucky one shot" (low accuracy high effect)? I think no one would use such an unreliable and unsafe power.

Do you like artillery the way they currently are, then?

What I envision is artillery firing, say, once every two seconds. If targeting massed units, every attack would be devastating to some target(s). If attacking, say, a single LI, the shot might have equal chances of landing smack in the middle and taking out half the units; landing on the edge, taking out a quarter of the units; or landing far enough away that only one or two units get hit. An attack on a lone charging cavalry could either wipe it out or (more likely) miss completely.

I'm not wedded to this idea. If you have a better one, please present it.

AgentAAA wrote:

the issue is that, given we've no personal experience with it, it's difficult to label an actual problem with it.

Fair enough. I never let mere ignorance prevent me from forming an opinion.

AgentAAA wrote:

From what I've heard from people like Yan, the issue isn't that the artillery's doing so much damage - it's actually the fact it's both currently inaccurate and easy to flank with cavalry, similar to archers.

That sounds realistic, anyway. Real-life artillery is pretty much defenseless up close. In the game, as in reality, it needs to be protected with faster and sturdier units (i.e. infantry).

Perhaps the only necessary change, then, is for it to fire more often and do more damage when it hits. That might make the hassle of protecting it seem more worthwhile.

Of course, the AI is currently too stupid to protect it. Hopefully, that might change soon.

in my experience the elven artillery hits reliably, and not overly hard. it also has 5 speed, which kills the unit as there is hardly any room for manouvering for LOS - and it is my understandign that all lightside art requires LOS (line of sight)

Arty does well over a long battle where they can fire consistently - and that is because they are such an inconsistent threat. Over an entire match of ignoring them, yes, you will lose a lot of units to arty. I've previously posted that the problem with arty is that players cannot really formulate plans or tactics around too much unpredictability.

The time frame for when a player can assume their arty will do significant damage is so long, that they turn into a fire and forget unit. You set it to target something and flick your eyes to the minimap whenever you hear that you've killed one of their units to check if you need to retarget the arty. Its just not an interesting method of changing the flow of a battlefield. Luck plays too much of a factor in whether arty counters your enemy's units, or whether your enemy counters you. That detracts from good strategy gameplay.

Two example roles for Artillery:

• Area denial. Ground targeting, visible to enemy, semi long time between targeting and when shells actually start to land. High trajectory, so this should not require LOS. It can effectively shut off or at least heavily penalize moving through certain paths or choke points. Longer range than Precision Arty. Think Mortars.
  
• Precision, near-guaranteed, consistent single target kills at long range. Low time between targeting and when target is hit. Trying to hit fast moving units is harder than hitting slow moving units. Requires LOS. Shorter range than Mortar Arty. Think Ballistas.

Most other types of arty could probably fit as a hybrid along a gradient between these two types. I think each side should have options for both extremes and something in between. Both of these types of arty have specific roles. One will enforce consistent TTKs on targets in LOS and does well vs specific unit types like large special units. The other changes the flow / movement on the battlefield without consistent, guaranteed TTKs.

What's the point on buying artyllery units? Just ignore those units as they are useless and a waste of resources

Souless wrote:

What's the point on buying artyllery units? Just ignore those units as they are useless and a waste of resources

My 1 star arty gets about 50% more kills than any single unit of my 5star+ archers. Theyre just harder to defend and a lot less mobile. That makes them a relatively risky asset on the battlefield.

I personally didnt think the damage boost was enough to justify the lack of mobility, but I prefer high mobility over damage in most cases. I'm sure others will like the ability to hunker down and dish hard damage.

That said, I mentioned some of the issues I have with them in my previous post.

considering that arty has 3times the AP costs you would expect it to do at least 300% the kills and not 150%...

Chip56 wrote:

considering that arty has 3times the AP costs you would expect it to do at least 300% the kills and not 150%...

I agree, it might not be perfect parity, but I dont think it needs to. They both have slightly different niches.

Also, that was comparing:
Rank1 Arty VS lvl 5-7 archers in full Rare+ gear.

I havent done exhaustive tests or anything, but I dont think theyre under powered - I think theyre just not interesting enough. Their role on the battlefield isnt unique enough to justify the risks of using them.

That may change though when Guild Warfare comes out. So I'm not too worried about them for now.

Great posts...as always..

I think you are all missing the point...

Have you ever tried artillery against a human player? The tactical advantages given to the player fielding an artillery against one who doesn't are simply...enormous..

As to whether artillery is underpowered or overpowered, allow me to state some facts.

1) Multiple hits
2) STR 60-90 depending on the type of artillery
3) Multiple damage depending on the type of artillery (One hit can cause multiple HPs damage.)
4) Some types of artillery have indirect firing mode as well (no LOS needed), BUT it is quite inaccurate. Accuracy depends on the type of artillery, distance and of course LOS.

RuneSlayer wrote:

As to whether artillery is underpowered or overpowered, allow me to state some facts.

1) Multiple hits
2) STR 60-90 depending on the type of artillery
3) Multiple damage depending on the type of artillery (One hit can cause multiple HPs damage.)
4) Some types of artillery have indirect firing mode as well (no LOS needed), BUT it is quite inaccurate. Accuracy depends on the type of artillery, distance and of course LOS.

Woot, 60-90 base strenght... That's really good.

But as I said before... Why are you hiding the missile strenght stat ? That would be a lot better if we can see it and how stat gain with items (well, obviously not for atillery) and leveling interact with it...

Latexlord wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

As to whether artillery is underpowered or overpowered, allow me to state some facts.

1) Multiple hits
2) STR 60-90 depending on the type of artillery
3) Multiple damage depending on the type of artillery (One hit can cause multiple HPs damage.)
4) Some types of artillery have indirect firing mode as well (no LOS needed), BUT it is quite inaccurate. Accuracy depends on the type of artillery, distance and of course LOS.

Woot, 60-90 base strenght... That's really good.

But as I said before... Why are you hiding the missile strenght stat ? That would be a lot better if we can see it and how stat gain with items (well, obviously not for atillery) and leveling interact with it...

I think they have mentioned that they ran out of space in the UI for it. Still, I agree all stats should be visible to players.

Hegorn wrote:

I think they have mentioned that they ran out of space in the UI for it. Still, I agree all stats should be visible to players.

I'm fairly new to the game, and the forum is wide... I didn't see that.

Still, space in UI can be created... by reducing unit portrait / widening window / opening second sheet for stats...

It's not like stats are checked in combat on a dynamic way by the players... We need to know them when we recruit / equip units... UI can't run out of space at that time...

I've gone against artillery several times now in PvE (Nightmare), and I've found that they make the battle more difficult for me, mostly because of their ability to hit without LOS (I play dwarves, so those are dark artillery units). I've found that my choices are to either
- send a LI all the way to them, avoiding the rest of the enemy army; in which case I lose at least half the unit just getting to the artillery, and it misses the rest of the fight and distracts me from it as I must split my attention.
- or ignore it until the rest of the fight is over, and often lose a weakened unit to its indirect fire.

Either way, I end up with more casualties than if the enemy had brought an extra heavy infantry instead,

Of course, this is only true because the enemy outnumbers me to start with, limiting my tactical choices; but it certainly makes the 'hunkering down behind a tree' strategy that I otherwise favor a lot less attractive.

I suspect this would be true in PvP too, since the few battles I've been in see the players cautiously making their way toward each other, ducking and weaving in hope of getting a positional advantage. An artillery that ignored LOS would force the opposing player to rush to battle, even if that means giving up the positional advantage. Of course, to work, you would need large armies, otherwise the artillery would take too much of the army's AP.

Fizban wrote:

I've gone against artillery several times now in PvE (Nightmare), and I've found that they make the battle more difficult for me, mostly because of their ability to hit without LOS (I play dwarves, so those are dark artillery units). I've found that my choices are to either
- send a LI all the way to them, avoiding the rest of the enemy army; in which case I lose at least half the unit just getting to the artillery, and it misses the rest of the fight and distracts me from it as I must split my attention.
- or ignore it until the rest of the fight is over, and often lose a weakened unit to its indirect fire.

Either way, I end up with more casualties than if the enemy had brought an extra heavy infantry instead,

Of course, this is only true because the enemy outnumbers me to start with, limiting my tactical choices; but it certainly makes the 'hunkering down behind a tree' strategy that I otherwise favor a lot less attractive.

I suspect this would be true in PvP too, since the few battles I've been in see the players cautiously making their way toward each other, ducking and weaving in hope of getting a positional advantage. An artillery that ignored LOS would force the opposing player to rush to battle, even if that means giving up the positional advantage. Of course, to work, you would need large armies, otherwise the artillery would take too much of the army's AP.

A single cavalry makes all your post wrong to start with.

And your post is proven wrong by one word he has written: DWARF

the super fast 10 speed dwarven cav will surely outmaneuver everyone and destroy that arty before the fight is over...

Chip56 wrote:

And your post is proven wrong by one word he has written: DWARF

the super fast 10 speed dwarven cav will surely outmaneuver everyone and destroy that arty before the fight is over...

If a race don't have cavalry, they can't beat artillery, its ok. Cavalry still destroys artillery, making artillery very very vulnerable. Now, complaining why dwarves doesn't have cavalry is a good point.

Mephy wrote:

Fizban wrote:

I've gone against artillery several times now in PvE (Nightmare), and I've found that they make the battle more difficult for me, mostly because of their ability to hit without LOS (I play dwarves, so those are dark artillery units). I've found that my choices are to either
- send a LI all the way to them, avoiding the rest of the enemy army; in which case I lose at least half the unit just getting to the artillery, and it misses the rest of the fight and distracts me from it as I must split my attention.
- or ignore it until the rest of the fight is over, and often lose a weakened unit to its indirect fire.

Either way, I end up with more casualties than if the enemy had brought an extra heavy infantry instead,

Of course, this is only true because the enemy outnumbers me to start with, limiting my tactical choices; but it certainly makes the 'hunkering down behind a tree' strategy that I otherwise favor a lot less attractive.

I suspect this would be true in PvP too, since the few battles I've been in see the players cautiously making their way toward each other, ducking and weaving in hope of getting a positional advantage. An artillery that ignored LOS would force the opposing player to rush to battle, even if that means giving up the positional advantage. Of course, to work, you would need large armies, otherwise the artillery would take too much of the army's AP.

A single cavalry makes all your post wrong to start with.

Normally yes. In PvE, yes.

Not for PvP vs a turtling Darkside PvPer. Simply stack melee and arty behind LOS and wait. Lightside has no options but to attack or suffer hard losses. It removes most of the tactical options that a lightside PvPer has.

Yes, darkside arty has lower accuracy compared to light, but non-LOS arty is a huge advantage. What boggles me the most is that it was only given to 1 side. I could understand if it was given to 1 race on each side, but that fundamentally skews balance towards Darksiders for endgame PvP.

HoopyFrood wrote:

Speaking as one who has neither cavalry nor artillery, and probably never will, it appears to me that cavs are OP, and artillery are UP. I’ll discuss artillery here, and save cavalry for another post.

I’ve never fought alongside artillery, and everyone I know who has them says they’re useless. Going up against them, it seems pretty much any infantry unit can boldly approach one and expect to win. Archers tear them to pieces.

Artillery ought to strike fear into any opponent. With the possible exception of cavs, no single unit of comparable experience should expect to survive an open assault on artillery across open terrain. One direct hit should be enough to rout a unit of LI or archers, much of the time. A company of 3 or 4 LI should be able to take them down, but only with heavy losses.

On the other hand, they should be decidedly inaccurate. Attacking an engaged enemy with artillery should be just as likely to destroy or rout your friend. An extremely lucky LI might survive an assault, simply because the artillery keeps missing completely. And even a single LI should have no trouble overwhelming artillery if they make it there alive.

So far this discussion describes generalized artillery, but it would make sense for different races to have dramatically different kinds. The dwarven arbalest could be as accurate as an archer, and damage 10 units in a straight line, but have little or no effect over a solid obstacle. (I think of an arbalest, or bolt thrower, as being like a big crossbow, hence better suited for dwarves than elves.) Demon artillery could throw burning coals, having shorter range than other artillery, but causing damage over a wider area. Taking the idea a step further, elven mages could cast fireballs and/or lightning bolts, and undead could generate clouds of nerve gas.

Artillery also begs for richer terrain effects, particularly the advantages of higher ground. But that’s a topic for another post.

This mighta been hit before but I'll throw what I know in here playing as UD and having some fun with artillery.

I agree with the first one, if a unit charges without use of cover, artillery should tear them up hard, even force them to flee. Archerwise the higher the artillery, the less it seems to effect them in PVE, but still 1 unit can generally do alot or kill an artillery unit. I'd say this is a slightly unfair advantage at best in archers favor but they gotta be useful for something right? That and if you have 2-3 art units you'll drop archers really quickly.

The amount of AP it takes for an artillery piece is very low compared to a well equipped unit since they can't equip gear (Which I hope they add gear or at least a hero slot to artillery) Since I've seen to often on other players artillery 1 good shot forced it to flee immediately from an archer squad. Artillery shouldn't flee period, the slow move speed is enough of a hamper to make it quite vulnerable to cav and archers. As far as cav go it should do good damage, I noticed on mine that regardless of equipment I generally loose a chunk of life or 1 of my 4 units per shot from a cannon. I think that's fair enough, cav should have a weakness other then other cav or a really well equipped squad of heavies that the cav can easily kite around.

Innacurate? These things should be dead on accurate, especially with how slow they attack and how much terrain can be utilized to hide from it. As a 13B field artillery I can drop a round directly on a fast moving target 25km+ depending on the round I use. The closer you get doesn't matter, just means we'd be that much faster at throwing rounds out. Obviously we're not playing a new age game and I agree with your statement on accurate fires per different artillery type. A lobbing unit that ignores terrain like a catapult (skull thrower) that lobs should be decidedly more inaccurate the further the unit is and do less damage, but increases both the closer they get, as opposed to a ballista class weapon that would have a harder time dealing damage to a unit do to it's lack of quadrant/deflection (elevation coupled with right-left limits) it can attain. Maybe instead they could implement a formation key for infantry and archer units that spreads them out to avoid artillery fire, but even more vulnerable to melee.

On the point of terrain, I agree as well, I'd like to see a few barricades or strategic locations located near each unit that allows a defensive boost being behind it (enemy can attack you still with ranged/melee but it'd be a marked difference less effective due to barriers). This would really help archers saying they are all but ineffective compared to bringing another infantry unit. To keep people from just massing behind one, make them small enough to fit 1, maybe 2 units effectively behind and remove most or all of the defensive buff if an enemy reaches it and is meleeing your units.

Artillery is effective against units grouped, if your dumb enough to mass all your guys together it will drop 3-5 units per group per shot due to its AOE which is the only real reason to ever bring artillery. This setup allows you to go in with some light archers/artillery and heavy infantry to stop/slow down a mass of enemy long enough for them to shine.

Well... For a balance point of view, having all the non-LOS in dark side seems really weird.

They should have split it : 2 non-LOS and 1 LOS only in dark army, and 1non-LOS / 2 LOS only for light... At least it bring different strategies in co-op...

About accuracy : medieval fantasy + game balance means they don't need to be as accurate as 21st century weaponry. Just need to be powerfull enough to neither be OP nor UP.

Artillery can't flee, they're all Unbreakable.
A hero in artillery will neglected their major weakness, it would raise their healthpoint from 5 to 17... Even more with the right equip... That would be a 300 % improvement It's fair that Artillery don't have access to hero.

The targeting pattern for arty seems to be very large compared to archers - large enough that I'm FFing units that are not engaged with my target. It also seems to be oddly shaped and start quite a bit in front of the target.

I sometimes get 450+ FF in battles that I very carefully selected enemy targets who were not engaged with any friendly troops. By contrast, I rarely get over 150 FF with 4 archer units and often get 0 FF.

When I do get higher FF numbers with archers, I can easily attribute it to some mistake I made. With Bolt Throwers, I'll sometimes get 0 FF and other times I'll get a wild 500 without really knowing why.

So apologies to those I've FF'd, but I tried to test how close I could target without causing FF and even friendlies that have about 1 unit's worth of space to my target will get hit with FF. For science.


To give a rough depiction of how the target areas feel:

Archers >>			o			I			<< Bolt Thrower