Steinhauer's Opinion: The Close Combat Archer, Part 2

In the second part of a two part look at The Close Combat Archer (click here for part one), columnist Jonathan Steinhauer looks at the design of this tricky class in MMOs.

In the medieval era, a man who was struck by an arrow in the chest was either dead or severely injured, whereas in gaming, a man who is hit by ten arrows might very well shrug them off and win the day.

What does all this mean for archers? Simply this. The potency of archery is to inflict damage at range before the target can get into melee. But when health is super-inflated to offer the survivability necessary in MMOs it also makes the task of an archer killing its opponent at range almost impossible.

Read more after the jump.

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Shame this is such a LOTRO fanpost, nothing of what was discussed here is actually new in LOTRO, look at other mmo's like ohh lets say WoW. They already have the hunter (equivelant to an archer)working with ranged weaps and traps. I agree that it would need a revamp of the HP system to let an archer work correctly, but the suggestiosn made are old and already in place in multiple mmo's

I will be as blunt as possible, there are only two possible points made in your post, either 1) you were paid to build up LOTRO, or 2) you need to expand your repertoire of gaming knowledge.

I am completely disgusted with this post, one, because LOTRO is a total crap game of mass production +1, pumped out purely to exploit the semi-recent hype of LotR, and then backed by a sizeable publisher to get the word out to all the fanbois. While that would be fine if it were laid before a different audience, I come here to get news about a hardcore PvP game and get instead this carebear fluff.

please understand, I am not trying to misdirect my frustration waiting for beta, the irritation I express really is addressing this article, but more actively, my disgust with LOTRO.

This will be the last post I read by Jonathan 'the carebear' Steinhauer. Please take Darkfall off the list of places your posts are viewable. If I wanted to listen to this crap I would hange out in the newbie areas of WoW or something.

In regards to the valid point of HP and Archery, YES, HP are the friggin problem, but thankfully in a non level/class based game, HP can have a standard HUMAN cap, and a realistic balance of weapons can be imposed (I cite reference to Ultima Online Archery). Impose a MAX STAT like in UO, have HP relative to one of the stats, BAM, the player now decides the balance based on their playstyle. Say the average player has about 100 HP like in UO, make a crafted bow do 25 damage on a good hit. add a balancing speed, like 2.5 second pause between arrows, that means 10 seconds from full to dead if player B does nothing. say player B has a sword, it swings every 2 seconds, ok, make it do 20 damage a swing, BAM, 5 swings, 10 seconds = 100hp, BOW AND SWORD ARE BALANCED. HOLY CRAP, so easy. oh wait, what about a rapier? well, its faster, and does less damage... 1.5 second pause, dam, 15 damage a swing. (all damages are based on middle value of possible armor range on a successful body hit, not arm or head)

well now, seems nobody has an advantage, and both are feasable to appeal to the PLAYERS playstyle.

when you add special moves, they must balance with each other, ok, PINSHOT, you freeze your opponent by shooting their foot to the ground, special ability. delayed player by 3 seconds. ok, sword needs a 'flat of the blade' special, where you hit them in the side of the head cauing them to be confused and stumble around for 3 seconds. how hard is that?

that being said, I realize there is much more to balancing a game, but not in the sense of balancing equipment. ITS JUST MATH.

~Manaburn

manaburn:

I am completely disgusted with this post, one, because LOTRO is a total crap game of mass production +1, pumped out purely to exploit the semi-recent hype of LotR, and then backed by a sizeable publisher to get the word out to all the fanbois. While that would be fine if it were laid before a different audience, I come here to get news about a hardcore PvP game and get instead this carebear fluff.

I agree. LOTRO was a pile of junk. Turbine are horrid game developers.. The only game that Turbine ever made that was great was Asheron's call 1.. and that was made by completely different people a long , long time ago..

The scope of this article is a narrow one, that being the absurdity of close combat archers. Specifically, it compared real life archery versus game applications. The solutions sought, therefore, were tied to how the bow's use can be adjusted in games. Thus the only solution internal to the archery mechanism itself is through either prolonging the period or ranged combat or providing for other weapon uses in melee.

Ultimately, hit point and weapon balancing do not fix this problem. The UO example cited above shows the helpfulness of lowered hit points in rectifying the issue of inflicting more accurate damage at range, but does nothing to address what happens when melee occurs. Melee situations are unavoidable, even for the most cautious archers, be they due to missed shots, ambushes, or too many opponents at once. In most games it is possible to kill opponents at range in specific circumstances. But because that is possible is not the issue. The question is what happens to archers in melee. The three answers are:
[1] They continue to use their bows (the least realistic but very popular solution)
[2] They shift to melee (moderately realistic and moderately popular)
[3] They are killed (the most realistic but bound to be completely unpopular).

This issue cannot be solved by adjusting hit points or weapon balancing. As I alluded to in Part I, there are severe flaws with most games' hit point systems. Many games also have problems with their weapon balancing. But while both of these topics deserve further analysis, neither can solve the gross unrealism of archers firing their blows while in melee combat.

perhaps add the unstrung bow to the staff class of weapons, and in melee, the archer can use it as a staff. There is a level of plausibility to that, as well it would be an original idea. Also, as it is still a bow, You could then believably use the archery modifiers if it were considered part of bow use.

In opposition to pulling out a shortsword and getting hacked to death by a brutish warrior with a two handed axe, this seems a healthy alternative that adds something to the community. Make unstringing the bow similar to changing stances in wow, but add a delay maybe, so that you cant constantly switch back and forth. say it takes 3 seconds to unstring/restring the bow.