Patch 1 Changelist [ETA: 11/22/2012]

[Escadin]

In AOC, part of the intensity and thrill was zig zagging across an entire map dodging arrows when you could and if you actually got close to an archer you were rewarded with a semi easy kill. Now that is virtually impossible as they can block everything with little to no cost in stam or health. Hell I have seen an archer take on 3 enemies melee, he mostly parried all the heavy weapons allowing the enemy to team wound each other then kicked in spamming combo and took them out. Sorry, way to OP for a low armor support range class. Bring back the easy kill melee of archers and keep them in the rear with the gear doing their job at range where they belong. If they are skilled they will still do well. It is not like you ever see archers doing objectives or not killing their teammates from the rear.....

... because it is obviously their fault to use the heavy weapons... Sec weapons, especially axes 2shot ( 1shot to the head ) archers and are way harder to block. They're fast enough to deal with the counterattack if they get blocked anyways. Also a player who spent time training archery has inferior meleeskills than an actual melee player of the same rank, If noobs feed them then inbalance is not the point. Finally, the awesome ability to get oneshotted by a whole lot of weapons and the shortest meleeweaponrange of all makes it impossible to join a clash or fight involving more than 2 ppl. Archers do have a downside in melee, try to exploit it.

[keyert]

In AOC, part of the intensity and thrill was zig zagging across an entire map dodging arrows when you could and if you actually got close to an archer you were rewarded with a semi easy kill.

Yes because in AoC, there actually was an equal distribution of archers:melee users. If the FFA game mode was added to the game, archers should still be able to compete in this game mode and not be entirely obsolete. I play a high majority of FFA for the sole reason of friendly fire existing in team-based scenarios. Claiming that is the archers fault if they hit a friendly target is just not a true statement. Now that arrows are moving faster this will be less likely to occur, but for javelins it is still the case: whether or not my throw hits a friendly or enemy target is much more dependent upon the movement of my teammate than the accuracy of my throw. By time my javelin reaches it's prejected destination, a minimum of 0.25-0.5 seconds have elapsed depending upon the range; assuming this is a team-based map, it will most likely be a decent length. This is an impossible window to predict movement if movement is not consistent; hence my desire to play in a FFA scenario as javelin. Do not forget that you're shield size was doubled in the transition to Chivalry and that 90% of the profile is now protected by a shield.

I am judging by FFA servers, and there, there cannot be beyond a shadow of a doubt that if any archers are even playing in the game, they are on the lower half of the leaderboard.

Regarding the melee abilities of archers I care not if they should be altogether removed from the game. When an archer class is selected, the intent of the player is to rely predominantly on its ranged capabilities.

[TehJumpingJawa]

Do I need to backup my config\ini?

Got quite a lot of custom config in there and would be upset to lose it *again*, without warning.

To answer my own question : yes, backup your config files - the iniversion has changed causing the game to overwrite ALL your old files.

Is the UDK really so tedious?
I don't recall EVER having to backup/restore my config files in Quake 3 - and I played that through dozens of patches, and over a period of almost a decade.

[TehJumpingJawa]

Where shall I post bugs I find with the beta patch?
Already found 1 animation bug & 1 (new) map exploit and I haven't even join a server yet

[Escadin]

does the new animation still allow you to start sprinting while you are drawing a bow?

[Martin]

Just stick all bugs in the bug thread here: viewtopic.php?f=69&t=3582&p=27037#p27037

It's all part of one master list, so when it gets fixed, it'll be removed.

[Retsnom]

The listed balance changes are seriously misleading, sorry for this I didn't get a chance to check those before they were posted. But we've adjusted a fair bit of how the archers work including completely new animations for the archer and many many fixes on javelins + adjustments to the crossbow. Don't take what is posted in that list for ranged weapons at face value.

In addition, the "jumpkick" is still possible, only that you can no longer kickjump as that was leading to exploits in the levels. So you can jump first and then kick, but can't kick and jump in the middle of the kick anymore.

IF kickjump was adding to exploits, what is your definition of exploits? If your definition includes getting over normal obstacles that you could instinctively get too or on top of then I am all for it. I am beyond frustrated by this games lack of use of interactive terrain via jumpsquating or kickjumping to get to certain locations for sniping, or 3 dimensional combat, not being able to jump/climb over or on some rocks, walls, carts for either attack, defense or escape while some you can. If the exploit was getting into spawns then add an invisible wall to those areas and allow us the full use of the terrain, buildings and other obstacles.

@Retsnom : i semi-agree with you. Yeah, an archer shouldnot be able to parry a heavy mace with a knife... ( btw, someone in this forum spoke about a new weapon's stat, the mass... interesting)

But, if you don't let an archer parry with his dagger, what can he do against someone with a shield ? And lots of players use one ! It would be so frustrating for most of people.

And don't forget there is ways to pass trough a parry...

He shouldn't be able to do much, like in real life and rely on his teammates to help out. But a simple fix would be that of AOC and to have a stamina cost for raising and holding shields for extended period of times. Again stamina management for shield classes is greatly needed. Besides archers can always turn and run like the ranged cowards they are.

[JayDeth]

we've adjusted a fair bit of how the archers work including completely new animations for the archer and many many fixes on javelins + adjustments to the crossbow.

I sincerely hope this is the case. I played Javelin all throughout AoC and it was underpowered there despite it being significantly better than it is in Chivalry. Anyone playing more than five or six games of Chivalry can immediately observe the extreme lack of Archers near the top-end of the scoreboard. When I heard "Javelins needed a lot of work" stated when this patch was briefly alluded to before, I expected Javelins and the archer class in general to be made a legitimate class once again. As it is, that is most certainly not the case. There can be no doubt that archers are heavily underplayed and for good reason; they're killed instantly by every other class at close range and knights take 2-3 shots to kill depending on where they are hit. As was stated previously, give us one half-decent reason for the reduction of javelins and I will be more than satisfied, as I am obviously failing to realize your motives other than to completely and utterly remove archers from being an even remotely viable part of the game. Five Javelins? That's enough to kill maybe 1 and a half enemy players per life if the javelin-user is entirely accurate; something virtually impossible given javelins have a positive acceleration in the air for literally 5 feet before they dive bomb into the ground.

Good work so far, but real balancing needs to happen before this game will even begin to approach the equilibrium is so desperately needs.

I am not sure what servers you are playing on or if you have not come across some good archers but I have seen far too many archers in servers and the good ones are always on top. I also believe that that is the exact same number of Jav you got in AOC where you could get many 1 hit kills with jav.

I feel that the Archer class should and always be a support ranged class with melee being a very weak point to the class with maybe the exception of Jav, as a good accurate archer can soften up many classes only to finish them off in melee. But currently Archer melee is way over powered in their ability to parry any weapon and take no damage. Please let me see how an archer with a butter knife can parry my baseball bat in real life without taking some damage!

In AOC, part of the intensity and thrill was zig zagging across an entire map dodging arrows when you could and if you actually got close to an archer you were rewarded with a semi easy kill. Now that is virtually impossible as they can block everything with little to no cost in stam or health. Hell I have seen an archer take on 3 enemies melee, he mostly parried all the heavy weapons allowing the enemy to team wound each other then kicked in spamming combo and took them out. Sorry, way to OP for a low armor support range class. Bring back the easy kill melee of archers and keep them in the rear with the gear doing their job at range where they belong. If they are skilled they will still do well. It is not like you ever see archers doing objectives or not killing their teammates from the rear.....

Yeah, Archers are not OP in melee. You either have superior range with your primary as either Vanguard or Knight as well as health plus a secondary that has comparable speed and you have the health advantage still AND perhaps even a shield. MAA has that nifty quick step so he has a range advantage as well. Generally, if you're close enough to the Archer to hug him, it's your own fault for getting killed.

That said, yes, it doesn't make sense that a butter knife can parry anything let alone the weapons in this game. You're not Dracule "Hawk-Eyes" Mihawk. But you know what? You shouldn't be able to parry an overhead from an double ax or warhammer with a sword. Think about it for a second if you don't believe me. Hold your hand up like you do in the game if you were to parry in the situation I just described. Either you'll connect with the hammer/ax at the shaft and get your head caved in or you'll connect with the head of the weapon and your sword will probably break AND your head will cave in.

It's just way easier for everyone to know that if you have a melee weapon, you can parry other melee weapons. Otherwise, you might as well just give Archers the option to commit suicide if they get into melee combat. I don't know if you've tried it, but trying to stay alive in melee as an Archer is hard. If there's people who can do it well, more power to them.

In AOC, part of the intensity and thrill was zig zagging across an entire map dodging arrows when you could and if you actually got close to an archer you were rewarded with a semi easy kill.

Yes because in AoC, there actually was an equal distribution of archers:melee users. If the FFA game mode was added to the game, archers should still be able to compete in this game mode and not be entirely obsolete. I play a high majority of FFA for the sole reason of friendly fire existing in team-based scenarios. Claiming that is the archers fault if they hit a friendly target is just not a true statement. Now that arrows are moving faster this will be less likely to occur, but for javelins it is still the case: whether or not my throw hits a friendly or enemy target is much more dependent upon the movement of my teammate than the accuracy of my throw. By time my javelin reaches it's prejected destination, a minimum of 0.25-0.5 seconds have elapsed depending upon the range; assuming this is a team-based map, it will most likely be a decent length. This is an impossible window to predict movement if movement is not consistent; hence my desire to play in a FFA scenario as javelin. Do not forget that you're shield size was doubled in the transition to Chivalry and that 90% of the profile is now protected by a shield.

I am judging by FFA servers, and there, there cannot be beyond a shadow of a doubt that if any archers are even playing in the game, they are on the lower half of the leaderboard.

Regarding the melee abilities of archers I care not if they should be altogether removed from the game. When an archer class is selected, the intent of the player is to rely predominantly on its ranged capabilities.

I'm going to tell you straight up that Archers who shoot into melee when friendly fire is possible are... stupid and other not very nice words. There's no situation in the real world as well as this game where this would be acceptable. Spoony talked about this in one of his Counter Monkey videos and the same situation applies here. If I catch people doing that to me, they better hope I don't find them...

[TobiwanK3nobi]

I really don't understand the norse sword changes. It's turning into a shorter, weaker broadsword.

•The thrust will now be the exactly the same as broadsword, just shorter range.
•The slash and overhands are still less damaging than broadsword, but shorter range. The only advantage of these 2 attacks on the norse is that their windups are slightly faster than the broadsword, but this is offset by the broadsword having slightly faster swings.

With these stats, the weapon no longer has a unique role. It's no longer the best thrusting one-hander, and it is outperformed on slashes and overhands by nearly every other one-hander.

My plea:
•Make the thrust do 60 pierce damage.

The thrust should 2-hit vanguards when one hit is to the head. As a 55 damage thrust, you can't do this - (body = 44) + (head = 55) = 99. This is out of balance with other one-handers. Many other one-handers can two hit a vanguard with one head-hit; Falchion, Dane Axe, War Axe, Flanged Mace, Morning Star, Holy Water, even the Hatchet! Some of these even do it with better range(Dane, Star), and some with better speed(Holy, Hatchet). The only one-handers that can't do this(with ANY attack combination) are the Broadsword and the Norse Sword.

Alternatively, if the thrust must remain at 55 damage, at least don't slow down the windup speed! One or the other, I beg, or the Norse will lose its role! Hell, at 55 damage it can't even 2-body-thrust a Man-at-Arms, and only just barely manages it on an archer!

[j3st]

Please add an FFA/1v1 server. I'd like to do some testing in a controlled environment, where we can look for animation bugs, desyncs, exploits etc.