[mainline] Loyalist Bowman

[Xalzar]

The drakes are totally screwed if bowman gets +1 melee really? I wasn't aware that the bowman melee was so devastating... Now I know how to play this match up in the future, just spam bowman and make a wall so that when the clashers melee me I can own them in retal.

+1 melee is devastating for Saurians, not for the Clasher obviously.
This has been pointed out earlier in this very thread.

And now we are discussing about giving (or not) +1 movement instead.
I sincerely don't favor a buff on the Bowman, instead I would rise the cost of Spearman by one, given the problem is that the latter is preferred over the Bowman. But I don't want to repeat myself.

P.S.: Good luck with this thread, I hope it would eventually bring something new on the balance. But the actual trend seems to condemn it to untimely death...

*disappears*

[Mabuse]

raising spearman cost by 1 is heresy

to all other things in this thread i dont have an opinion

[taptap]

Maybe I shouldn't post in a MP thread... but if I look next to the bowman in the unit tree, there is the poacher. Same cost, same movement, less hp, less damage in melee and ranged, but better swamp and forest defense, one more attack, less xp required to level up. Sounds pretty even, but I would never have considered that the bowman needs an upgrade in this comparison. (I know balancing isn't unit vs. unit, but still.) At least to me it makes perfect sense to have a melee unit as the most common recruit for the loyalist army and bowmen especially useful against low defense units which are weak to or at least don't resist pierce damage = horses and drakes.

Bowmen outperform mages in raw damage output relative to cost (+ more hp etc.) as long as the opponent doesn't stand on more than 40%, even on 50% it isn't too bad. So I believe it is perfectly possible to create bowmen friendly maps. As these maps would also help horses and drakes and to a certain degree spearmen as a counter to them those maps wouldn't be balanced... but if everything has to be balanced for random faction choice this leaves you with enough easily available high defense hexes to make mages the better source for ranged damage. Would it be wrong to have bowmen friendly maps that are used only for certain match-ups?

...

But if people really want more bowmen, why not make the spearman 15 gold, the bowman 13 gold? There will be some archer armies then, I guess.

[PeterPorty]

13 gold for the bowman is way too much, and 15 gold for the spearman is just dumb, IMHO. I don't see why it should be balanced; the bowman has it's uses which are specific, and he can be a GREAT unit in those cases; plus it's a really good all-around unit, it's just not used on every kind of match, and I don't think it should be. Some units are made to be spammed, others are made to be used on special occasions... I don't see a problem with this.

[Temuchin Khan]

....I don't see why it should be balanced; the bowman has it's uses which are specific, and he can be a GREAT unit in those cases; plus it's a really good all-around unit, it's just not used on every kind of match.... Some units are made to be spammed, others are made to be used on special occasions... I don't see a problem with this.

Exactly. NO ONE in this thread has proven that buffing the Bowman would be a good thing.. They've just said that they would prefer to see it used more.

Let me remind everyone that regardless of what you prefer, it might still work perfectly well.

In fact, this thread reminds me of what one of the developers complained about years ago: most proposed changes are just not-so-subtle attempts to make one person's favorite faction invincible.

In fact, judging by the various comments made in this thread, the consensus seems to be that buffing the Bowman would actually be BAD, and would unbalance the game!

[taptap]

13 gold for the bowman is way too much, and 15 gold for the spearman is just dumb, IMHO.

13 is too cheap or still too much for you to recruit them? 1 gold is a smaller change than 1 MP, a "weak marksmanship" and other ideas floating around. And obviously you need to nerf elsewhere if you want to make one major source of pierce damage more attractive.

[PeterPorty]

13 gold is extremely small for the bowman; it's the same price as a troll whelp, and the northeners are supposed to be much cheaper than other factions.

The whole idea of the loyalists is that they have a powerful, cheap unit, the spearman; nerfing it would change the whole idea of the loyalist gameplay style.

[Raket]

I see the bowman as an early (or if funds are low) ranged hitter, it is great for weakening or finishing enemy melee fighters.
The mage does it better but it's expensive, has low hp, and is virtually no threat in melee unlike the bowman which can still hold its ground.

Bowman is great support for your spearmen, and unlike the mage, the bowman doesn't need to be overly protected by your fighters.
Unless facing undead or elusivefoots with high defense, a bowman is better than the mage and alot cheaper.

[Doc Paterson]

I never recruit bowmen, and I mean never.

I have no desire to convince anyone to buff them though, because-

Plenty of people think it's a good choice, in certain situations. I'm not saying that I'm better than them by any means- I just like the influence that a subtle, not-so-obvious recruiting choice can have on the outcome of a match. If we buff every unit that is thought to be weak *at high levels of play*, we will make recruiting choices more obvious in general (i.e. people who already thought it was good get a small reward, and the people who knew it wasn't have their advantage reduced). I think that judging units is a skill, just like tactics and strategy are skills, and I'm in favor of letting players that are good at judging units "cash in" on their knowledge. People should be allowed to make recruiting choices that are ever-so-slightly sub-optimal, as long as the unit in question is not completely terrible all of the time. Know what I mean?

Note that I'm not talking about factional balance here, for which I would never hesitate to argue for any given buff or nerf. But when factions are balanced, I enjoy the presence of units whose quality is debatable. I hope that this makes some degree of sense.

[Huumy]

lol Doc Paterson. I recruit bowmen vs Drakes, are you saying I'm worse player than you?...

Anyway just a question about this thread, is this going anywhere? Is there any want from the devs to buff bowmen or nerf loyalist atm?

[Cackfiend]

lol Doc Paterson. I recruit bowmen vs Drakes, are you saying I'm worse player than you?...

I never recruit bowmen, and I mean never.

...

I'm not saying that I'm better than them by any means

As you can see he already preemptively answered your question (or were you joking? )

Anyway just a question about this thread, is this going anywhere? Is there any want from the devs to buff bowmen or nerf loyalist atm?

Well lets see... this thread really has mutated into something carnival-like with everyone adding in their two cents of what they would like to see changed with the bowman. My main goal was to get its melee dmg slightly unnerfed since comparing it to the super buffed orc archer its now easily the worst archer in the game.

That being said, this is what has come out of it:

in the upcoming ladder era it appears as though the orc archer is going to need more xp to level, and the loyalist spearman is going to get a very tiny nerf to its ranged damage in part to make the bowman more appealing



afaik jb is the only dev that has replied to this thread in any way, and it was in pms to me and that he supported rebuffing the bowmans melee, but he was against ever nerfing it in the first place. (dont think there are other active devs tbh)


what I have learned from this thread is this basically: the bowman is only truly needed vs drakes, and since loyalist have what is thought to be an advantage in that matchup anyway its not going to help the matchup's balance. buffing the bowmans melee by 1 would make it more appealing to recruit vs other races but it still rarely would.

so that being said, what the bowman could really use is a massive overhaul to make it useful vs all matchups, but thats highly unlikely to happen. So i guess we'll all have to stick with just using it primarily for vs drakes and the rare times we actually get a LT leader to make the bowmans dmg a sweet 9-3 at day vs orcs and such

[Huumy]

Of course I was just joking

It's nice to hear the spearman is possibly nerfed, though it's really small nerf.

Overall I like the balance changes so far in wesnoth, they have been slow and small enough to really see the effects. Imo wesnoth balance is done better than any other game I ever played.
Sorry if this is too much of topic

[jb]

I just want to briefly add that not every unit needs to be equally useful. You'll find units like Wose, HI, and mermen hunter that have specific uses as well, and are often not recruited.

Balance has to stretch across SP campaigns and be put in historical context. So not every decision made focuses on competitive play (though most do).

[Cackfiend]

I just want to briefly add that not every unit needs to be equally useful. You'll find units like Wose, HI, and mermen hunter that have specific uses as well, and are often not recruited.

Balance has to stretch across SP campaigns and be put in historical context. So not every decision made focuses on competitive play (though most do).

good points for sure



though im not too sure what the specific use for merman hunters are other than to suck and die easily

[Temuchin Khan]

I just want to briefly add that not every unit needs to be equally useful. You'll find units like Wose, HI, and mermen hunter that have specific uses as well, and are often not recruited.

Balance has to stretch across SP campaigns and be put in historical context. So not every decision made focuses on competitive play (though most do).

Yeah, that's the point I've been trying to make in my posts in this thread. The bowman only needs to be buffed if the Loyalists need it to be more useful. If the Loyalists do just fine using it only in certain situations, then it doesn't need to be buffed. I'm open to anything, but so far no one has proven that the Loyalists need the bowman to have an increased role.