Archery!

Rivas

ANNOUNCE NEWS #2141
Date: 6/17/2013 at 15:57
From: Razmael, the Synthesist
To : Everyone
Subj: Archery

We've just released a fairly significant change to how archery works in
Aetolia. Details as follows:

- Arrows will no longer instantly hit/miss a target after being shot.

- They instead will travel between each room at a fast rate.

- They will lose damage and accuracy for each room traveled.

- The damage formula has also been changed.
- We'll be making continued adjustments to this as needed.

- Arrows that travel through firewalls will lose any venoms on them.
- But they'll set their target on fire.
- If the target is already on fire, it'll do more
damage to them.

- New Vision skill: EagleEye.
- When turned on, allows you see projectiles incoming
to your room.
- Doesn't work on projectiles that are SNIPEd.

- New Weaponry skill: Archery
- Confers use of LONGBOWS only.
- Does not grant access to the aiming skill.
- Does not grant ability to shoot meteors.

We'll be watching bow use carefully and adjusting balance costs, damage
and other aspects of the system as required.

Penned by my hand on the 8th of Midsummer, in the year 393 MA.

Rivas

Right, so my first question:


How does this affect arti bows, if at all? Will AIMING still be able to be purchased and placed on those bows? Will arti bows still be able to shoot meteor arrows?

Xavin

Yes to both. Artibows shoot faster and should deal more damage, as well.

Ilyon

Did some rudimentary testing. Against 5775 health and a 45% cutting audit:
- longbow, 15 dex: 365 damage
- longbow, 21 dex: 514 damage
- level 1 bow, 15 dex: 828 damage
- level 3 bow, 15 dex: 970 damage
- level 3 bow, 21 dex: 1364 damage

Longbows are 3.50 neutral balance, each artifact level reduces this by 0.25.

Slyphe

Please feel free to post observations and suggestions in regards to this change, and please remember to bug any weird happenings you encounter! This was a pretty big change to our projectile code as a whole (since another projectile skill is on the horizon...) as well as some changes on stat scaling, so chances are we'll see some flux in the output in the weeks to come.

Aiming is still purchasable, and yes, artifact bows are still capable of using meteor arrows.

Stathan

Did some testing with Jayke and his lvl 3 bow. 

With 17 dex, next room, roughly 1300 damage. (Vs Jayke and his cutting audit at 46% 7728 Max health)

With 21 Dex next room out Jayke did 1918 to me. (21% Cutting Audit of a monk 5659 Max health)

5 Rooms out he did 1662 to me. (same as above)

6 rooms out 1100, roughly.

Jayke with a longbow, 5 rooms out 465. 1 room out 724. (Same audit and health as above. Him with 21 Dex)

about a .5 second delay per room out in fire time and getting the message the arrow hit.

Don't have the skill in weaponry yet or I'd have done some comparative shooting. However, compared to the last time I was playing with his bow, 1 room out the damage is the same and slowly falls off the further you go (as intended) but with Dex statpack and the fact it's 2.36 sec balance, about half a second for the message for aiming and so forth. If I set it up, I could still technically string arrows together multiple rooms out and have it effective for no other reason but the delay and fire time match up about perfectly.

Atrapoema

"(since another projectile skill is on the horizon...)"

I thought we were all agreed that ranged skills (including projectiles) are either too powerful or too useless, swinging back and forth between these two states erratically, and therefore detrimental to combat balance and fun? I'm not trying to be critical of something we know absolutely nothing about at this point, but it seems counter to everything players have been saying, and that's a bit disappointing to me.

Kaeus

The problem I've had with ranged is how much you can dish out from afar, and the lack of risk you take versus being in the room in a conflict. This is only worsened by having the ability to remain undetected in Phase, and come out shooting. With the lowered damage this may not be as bad, so we'll have to see. Ranged very well might turn out to be fun if it is balanced accordingly.

Stathan

Kaeus said:

The problem I've had with ranged is how much you can dish out from afar, and the lack of risk you take versus being in the room in a conflict. This is only worsened by having the ability to remain undetected in Phase, and come out shooting. With the lowered damage this may not be as bad, so we'll have to see. Ranged very well might turn out to be fun if it is balanced accordingly.

Jayke does roughly 400-600 -more- damage to me after this recent change with his arti bow. Prior to this he was doing 1300-1400 a shot, which didn't vary by room. Now his shot from 5 rooms out does as much as his shot did one room over.

Kaeus

If he is doing MORE damage, then I'd say it certainly went the opposite direction from what most people would expect.

What was the situation surrounding this damage test? (Distance, class, dex stat, arti bow level, etc) You also have a really low cutting audit...my lord.

Stathan

Stathan said:

Did some testing with Jayke and his lvl 3 bow. 

With 17 dex, next room, roughly 1300 damage. (Vs Jayke and his cutting audit at 46% 7728 Max health)

With 21 Dex next room out Jayke did 1918 to me. (21% Cutting Audit of a monk 5659 Max health)

5 Rooms out he did 1662 to me. (same as above)

6 rooms out 1100, roughly.

Jayke with a longbow, 5 rooms out 465. 1 room out 724. (Same audit and health as above. Him with 21 Dex)

He was templar and I was monk.

Slyphe

Atrapoema said:

"(since another projectile skill is on the horizon...)"

I thought we were all agreed that ranged skills (including projectiles) are either too powerful or too useless, swinging back and forth between these two states erratically, and therefore detrimental to combat balance and fun? I'm not trying to be critical of something we know absolutely nothing about at this point, but it seems counter to everything players have been saying, and that's a bit disappointing to me.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be vague! I was referring to the Sentinel tertiary, Tracking, that we announced some time ago. Implementing it as we want required a retooling of projectiles in their current incarnation.

EDIT: Additionally, nobody should be doing more damage than they were previously. We reduced the contribution of dexterity and reduced damage the further away the bow is fired from. I would ensure that the maximum health and audits of the players in question are examined closely when making the comparison, since both have a large effect on the damage seen.

Calipso

That was a pretty fast change given to arrows. No comment about why.

Areka

Is there any chance Archery can open up or adapt to the other bow types? Crossbows aren't used at all, and like forging (which has some weapons completely unused), I'd personally at least like to see more uses for things, not less. (also, why do crossbows only have 13 months of use?). 

Slyphe

Calipso said:

That was a pretty fast change given to arrows. No comment about why.

As per my previous post, this change has been in the works since January or roundabouts. The scaling on bow damage has been an issue even longer.

RE bow types: Crossbows will be exclusive to Sentinels for the purposes of Tracking, while Darkbows are exclusive to Syssin. We'll be redoing crossbows as a whole as Tracking is worked on.

Stathan

Borrowing an Arti to boost life. Same cutting audit at 21%. Jayke still at 21 dex, Templar, level 3 bow.

6 rooms out 1763.

1 room out 2064.

Thats with 6279 life vs 5659 of the prior test.

Prior to the most recent change, with the varying damage in shots he would typically shoot me, instant hit, room distance not meaning squat, for 1300-1500 a shot. 

This is as a monk, 21% cutting audit. Yeah, I'm aware it's not the highest but his damage is higher overall. Even after a damage comparison with the borrowed artifact.

Slyphe

We'll take a look at the damage formulae then and make sure everything is kosher. The intent is for base damage to be roughly the same as it was before (for artifact bows), but the higher end of damage as you approach the cap on dexterity should be lessened.

Xavin

Heh. Why is it that every time a change is made -someone- has to insinuate that it's because someone was complaining or due to some sort of favoritism?

I think this is a good thing for our ranged game. Lessens the disparity by a fair bit.

Calipso

Xavin said:

Heh. Why is it that every time a change is made -someone- has to insinuate that it's because someone was complaining or due to some sort of favoritism?

I think this is a good thing for our ranged game. Lessens the disparity by a fair bit.

I only seem to see this with the Aetolia forums and game.

Strange...someone should really look into that.

Rivas

Airbeast.

Rivas

ANYWAYS


Anyone (on any side of the game) who's been playing for any substantial amount of time can tell you that this is a change that's been needed for RL -years-. Arrow damage has always been insane, and buying an arti bow has always been a gamechanger no matter what your class (which is ridiculous).

Very much looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Saybre

Just thought of something (haven't tested yet). But as I have syssin and utilize darkbow for that, and will want longbow for my other classes.

My question is thus: How do you specify BOWSTANCE? If I'm wearing a longbow AND a darkbow, will it default to darkbow, or will we add in a BOWSTANCE <bow> syntax?

Macavity

I am curious, if you have Eagleeye up and see something coming at you, can you then move and not get hit with it?   Has anyone tested this or is it possible in the code??

Xavin

Well, the idea is that you could shield to prevent it. So yes, I would imagine you could move and prevent it as well, so long as you left the line of sight that the arrow was traveling in.

Illikaal

Kaeus said:

If he is doing MORE damage, then I'd say it certainly went the opposite direction from what most people would expect.

What was the situation surrounding this damage test? (Distance, class, dex stat, arti bow level, etc) You also have a really low cutting audit...my lord.

That's monk audit for you. 

Strung

I've always thought an archery class could be cool for less involved players.

Alexina

I think an archery class would be bad, because combat should ideally be taking place with both combatants in the same room. There is a disparity when one person can attack at will while the other can not, which is why ranged abilities as a whole (telepathy/kaido/doppelganger, I'm looking at you) should be changed. I suppose line of sight is not as bad, but it just feels wrong when entire teams just sit and try to kill each other from afar.

Mastema

I do not mind this new archery skill, mind you I only do 522 damage from one room away so its never going to amount to much for my class. Still I think for people wanting to get into small group fights it will give them a chance to get in on the action from a distance.

Rou

I did a little testing a few days ago myself and I didn't gather an increase in damage. If anything, it seems weaker. However, I have no stat altering artifacts and tested @ 18 dex against a 36% cutting syssin audit. My level 3 bow sniped for about 1320 from 1 room away whereas a regular darkbow did 986. Without any solid data from before the change I can't make much of a comparison, but I'm finding it hard to validate 1400 credits for 350 damage and .65 seconds of balance -as syssin-. Artifact bows probably generate more use from other classes, especially a dex boosted templar.

Angwe

That 350 damage is the difference between you outrunning my sip and killing me or me sipping your damage away and catching you.

Rou

I don't see it outrunning sip/moss in any sort of timely fashion. Nothing any combatant couldn't easily walk away from.

Edit: I wouldn't mind refunds being made for artifact bows at this point.