Developer Blog 17 - Napoleonic Wars v1.1 Public Beta!

[dooomninja]

I am still very concerned about rifle mele now, it's not even that the damage is off but I don't seem to be able to hit anything... I swing and where it should hit I just get a soft thud sound as if I had swung it at a wall or a tree and it doesn't damage my opponent. Also being a rifle regiment I got 6 of the 95th on a beta server to test this. It took 10 swings to kill an AFK guy... Mainly because of this hitting glitch where only a few swings seemed to hit. Even so it took roughly 4 up swings to kill the guy. I am pretty worried since rifles were pretty much already the worst mele weapon in the game. Even cannon lighters are faster. Also cavalry muskets which have a longer range and a faster swing don't seem to have been affected.

Has anyone else experienced this hit issue? I can deal with the damage loss but the not hitting means that attacks are not interrupted by the short stun which will make thigs really hard 

It's because everyone is upset by the 95th in melee!

it's the fists of fury

people complain about rifles being spammable, when thats because thats the only way you can kill someone if you have to hit them 3+ times. if FSE want to stop rifle spam don't make them do less damage make them slower as then it would be harder to stun lock someone with one, though i don't think they even need that as you can block between the rifle hits anyway. if you want to stop any weapon from being spammed look at the bayonet, if you're outnumbered with one of them all you have to do is keep attacking and you'll get kills, sure one on one is harder, but i know i've charged a line as a skerm and killed two and got several more hits just because i had a a bayo if i tried that with a rifle but i would be dead almost instantly. don't get me wrong i know why the made bayos so powerful (poison ), and i don't really want them nerfed but rifles don't need to be nerfed either they are hard enough to use already. if you want to compare it to the sword bayo the sword bayo is a good deal faster and does cut damage do the hits to kill; is about the same and it will kill quicker you just HAVE to face hug, so in my experience the sword bayo and rifle are pretty balanced in melee so it lets people take their preference rather than having to use one.
/rant

[Cooper]

Also, seeing the skill of the texturers on this forum, wouldn't it be a nice idea to have like a texturing contest between them? Whoever can create the best texture for a British Hussar unit, gets to have his texture in the game!

I do hope you will consider adding this new unit, because I think it will greatly add on the game.
Thanks for hearing me out!

I like this idea! Also I think it has a few hussar uniforms somewhere in the forum.
From my point of view (in my position in leading a hussar regiment), I can say that we hate every time, then we are forced to play British cav. And not only we, I know that also some heavy cav regiments don't like to play on the British side. It is hard to say it this way, but in my opinion, British cav isn't really useful compare to the other factions' cav. I would recommend it highly if you change your mind and do something for the balance of this wonderful game.
Thanks for reading,
Cooper

[Gamer]

Has anyone else experienced this hit issue? I can deal with the damage loss but the not hitting means that attacks are not interrupted by the short stun which will make thigs really hard 

Yup, had a lot of problems actually hitting people, with many bouncing off, and even if they do hit they do next to nothing. So far I have only gotten one or two kills with a rifle because it takes up to 5 or 6 or even 7 hits to kill someone, and with the fact it keeps bouncing off that means I gotta swing like 15 times to kill someone...

This was one of the original rifle butt topic complaints just for reference:
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,227731.0.html

The people complaining to me seem as if they never actually play with one enough to make a complete judgement. Me being in a rifle detachment and using rifles as the main source of melee, I have never ever one hit a cav with a rifle, even when a cav is standing still it takes about 3 hits or more to kill a light horse (before beta). If the horse is moving at you, well you are screwed anyway as if you hit them it does nothing and they will still swing their sword and kill you. Well either I'm really shit with a rifle or they do not know what they are on about.

My suggestion; either keep it how it was before the beta, or even increase the damage, it does not need a speed increase as it is fine the way it was, but in terms of damage then it does need to be kept the same before the beta or increase it, as decreasing it just seems suicidal to me as the butter knife is also just as bad or even worse. Either make the rifle worth using or give us a completely new melee weapon which actually has a chance of killing someone before they one hit kill you.

Hell, why not add a feature to attach a bayonet to each rifle like the UK had in MM. Would all be balanced then and no one can complain about rifles melee being OP.

[Slayer]

Has anyone else experienced this hit issue? I can deal with the damage loss but the not hitting means that attacks are not interrupted by the short stun which will make thigs really hard 

Yup, had a lot of problems actually hitting people, with many bouncing off, and even if they do hit they do next to nothing. So far I have only gotten one or two kills with a rifle because it takes up to 5 or 6 or even 7 hits to kill someone, and with the fact it keeps bouncing off that means I gotta swing like 15 times to kill someone...

This was one of the original rifle butt topic complaints just for reference:
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,227731.0.html

The people complaining to me seem as if they never actually play with one enough to make a complete judgement. Me being in a rifle detachment and using rifles as the main source of melee, I have never ever one hit a cav with a rifle, even when a cav is standing still it takes about 3 hits or more to kill a light horse (before beta). If the horse is moving at you, well you are screwed anyway as if you hit them it does nothing and they will still swing their sword and kill you. Well either I'm really shit with a rifle or they do not know what they are on about.

My suggestion; either keep it how it was before the beta, or even increase the damage, it does not need a speed increase as it is fine the way it was, but in terms of damage then it does need to be kept the same before the beta or increase it, as decreasing it just seems suicidal to me as the butter knife is also just as bad or even worse. Either make the rifle worth using or give us a completely new melee weapon which actually has a chance of killing someone before they one hit kill you.

Hell, why not add a feature to attach a bayonet to each rifle like the UK had in MM. Would all be balanced then and no one can complain about rifles melee being OP.

This and for the love of God,

While on the topic of rifles, the up attack of a rifle is just completely broken and useless. It's slow, deals hardly any damage, the animation is broken and the hitbox is just weird.

this.

[Burakkuada]

First off, I understand that it's just a beta.

First impressions and suggestions:
   -The "pirates" should have their own melee weapons, I mean who's ever heard of a pirate plundering and murdering with a wooden fork? Maybe such weapons as pistols and sickles would greatly improve the beta.
   -The "marines" are just... ugh; they made me cringe with their simplicity and all around 'un-uniqueness', maybe they should be able to do special things that normal infantry can't do like swimming. This goes for the "pirates" too, when in water you did have to double tap space bar to turn on swimming mode.
   -The boats: the massive corvettes are simply b-e-a-utiful and are my favourite aspect of the beta, but they can't move; of course I understand the time and almost impossibility of programming them to be able to move so I suggest, please improve the looks of the small boats. I mean I could live with their uglyness in NW but seeing them in a supposed "naval" beta then their realism and detail should be improved.
   -Admirals: On land you have commanders such as Napoleon, why don't you have admirals on sea then? They would do the exact same thing as commanders just... they're admirals. People such as Wellington.
   -Pirate Nation: I'm not too sure if this idea would completely work but here goes; seeing as you wouldn't have pirates working with England and France then they should, logically, have their own nation. In that notion they'd have the same type of units just with different costumes and a bit of difference, such as they'd only have a partisani-like unit and maybe a militia-type unit where you can choose from a selection of 'pirate-like' weapons.

That's all I have for now, keep plundering me hearties.

[Burakkuada]

 never mind if you're just going to be a douche about it.

[Nipplestockings]

Just to add... Can this post get some [spoilers] going because there's alot of text in here... .

You can add spoilers to your posts yourself...
and

The "marines" are just... ugh; they made me cringe with their simplicity and all around 'un-uniqueness', maybe they should be able to do special things that normal infantry can't do like swimming. This goes for the "pirates" too, when in water you did have to double tap space bar to turn on swimming mode.

Swimming isn't supported by the Warband engine.

[Rejenorst]

The people complaining to me seem as if they never actually play with one enough to make a complete judgement.

If I had a dollar every time someone said that about an opinion they disagreed with

My suggestion; either keep it how it was before the beta, or even increase the damage, it does not need a speed increase as it is fine the way it was, but in terms of damage then it does need to be kept the same before the beta or increase it, as decreasing it just seems suicidal to me as the butter knife is also just as bad or even worse. Either make the rifle worth using or give us a completely new melee weapon which actually has a chance of killing someone before they one hit kill you.

Hell, why not add a feature to attach a bayonet to each rifle like the UK had in MM. Would all be balanced then and no one can complain about rifles melee being OP.

Its a fair enough suggestion, Personally I don't mind as I rarely play riflemen tbh. I live for the bayonet. While I can understand however that riflers would like to maintain the option of a decent melee, the riflemen are pretty much snipers and shouldn't even be getting into the mess of melee. Obviously there's very often little choice given cavalry or ambushes etc I am just typing my thoughts loudly.

Edit: While on the topic of rifles, the up attack of a rifle is just completely broken and useless. It's slow, deals hardly any damage, the animation is broken and the hitbox is just weird.

In the current patch? I've been thwacked on the head many a time by an audacious rifle meleer. Its true that it take on average around 5 hits or so but I have been killed in under 4 on a few occasions and that upper hand thwack; does anyone know whether it can knock you to the ground? That would certainly give me a new respect for the rifleman. 

[Betaknight]

On the last comment: I would think so yes. I mean imagen a log hittinh ya on the head. Wouldn't your head like crack or even fall to the floor? I would say the upper attack should be the most powerful rifle attack. Not the swings...

[Blobmania]

Has it occurred to anyone that Riflemen might not actually be meant to be good in melee? After all, they're a skirmisher unit without bayonets (but with increased accuracy to make up for that). If you're posting here expecting them to be on-par with line infantry in close combat situations then you're probably not using the class properly.

[SeanBeansShako]

Counter point, what is the point of having a rifle butt attack that does barely any damage at all? adding it was a waste of resources and tweaking it even more a waste of time and resources.

Personally in my own opinion, on release of the DLC everything was mostly fine and only needed a few tweaks. Sadly those tweaks turned into overhauls and things snow balled from there.

In retrospect in a perfect world it would have just been easier to have thrown in a server side option to decide the damage and speed of some weapons and let the server owners sort it out.

[Furnardan]

Whatever the case, I don't think we should give riflemen the advantage of having both awesome skirmisher/sniper abilities and a hammer of Thor potential.

[McEwan]

+1'd also, dont increase the heavy cav swords damage they are fine mostly 1 hit everything (depending) keep it the way it is.

I share the opinion that the heavy cav sword really shouldn't have increased damage. If used correctly, they are more often than not a one-hit kill, on horseback and on foot. Heavy cavalry swords were pretty devastating, but we're not looking for lightsabers here.

[Gamer]

To quote from the OP:

Balance Changes

- Decreased the damage the rifle in melee would inflict, they were more powerful than most real melee weapons

So, I look at it under the heading of "Balance Changes", so either put it under a new heading as making something more "historically accurate" is not balancing. But if it was reduced for balancing, and I'm assuming it was as a minority was complaining about it being OP and one hitting stuff (which I lol at personally and so will other people who play rifleman every day).

So if it was done for accuracy reasons, then surely that defeats the point of a fun game, as being a skirmisher in a game I really don't want to run every time I see an enemy up close and delay a round until the timer runs out running away as I'm the only guy left and cant melee for shit.

Obviously an OP weapon such as the rifle in melee would need to be nerfed as it is unfair on the cav with their swords and line infantry with bayonets. I guess that is called balancing. Obviously if you have played with a rifle in melee before the patch you would see that it was infact so OP that it took a few hits to kill someone. So tell me why does it need to be changed if it just makes it completely unbalanced. Obviously a skirmisher is meant to used for shooting, but obviously you have to go into melee at some point, so why make it as such that they have no chance of killing people unless they are actually retarded and don't know how to change to melee mode and click the mouse?

Looking back at the thread made a year ago, all I see are people complaining who don't actually play as a rifleman. Also the fact that at least 50% disagreed to nerf them makes me think why would you change it when it is; 1) there is a split view, and 2) when no one actually complains about it in the game. Since the start of NW not once have I seen in game people complaining about the rifle being OP.

Before the change, it was fair, people with a rifle had a chance at killing a dismounted cav or a person with a bayonet, now however they have absolutely no chance of killing any. Why change it in the first place? The rifle was "no hammer of Thor potential" and I honestly can't see why people see the rifle in such a way. The animations of the up attack need working on as well, as it doesn't look too great, also it can't hit team mates unless your friend is behind you

Either change it to make it balanced, or don't change it at all. As right now, it is so unbalanced I have lost track of what the word actually means any more.

P.S. While you are at it, please nerf the sword skrims carry as it is also OP. ty. 

Also @ Blob, if people wanted it to be on-par with a bayonet, then of course that would be pretty stupid. However I'm sure most people don't want it to be on-par with a bayonet or the cav sword, they want it to at least stand a chance of killing someone in melee, which to me seems reasonable, not quite sure about all the people that want easy kills in melee though...  Is it me or does no one actually play the game? I really can't see how people think that reducing the melee damage of the rifle is called balancing.

[Rejenorst]

So, I look at it under the heading of "Balance Changes", so either put it under a new heading as making something more "historically accurate" is not balancing. But if it was reduced for balancing, and I'm assuming it was as a minority was complaining about it being OP and one hitting stuff (which I lol at personally and so will other people who play rifleman every day).

You don't really need to play as the class every day in order to offer criticism about its implementation, especially if your constantly at the receiving/butt end of the class ^_^ As I said before, it tends to be the people that love the class the most that end up being opposed to any nerfs/balances which at times makes it difficult to judge whether the individual is being objective or not.

The thread I posted was merely one that was posted ages ago, I am not prepared to search through all of the last few patch bitch-fests lol but it gives you an idea I guess where some of them where coming from.

My view is that the rifle butt probably didn't need any major balancing as it usually takes a few hits to knock me down with it while I only need 1 - 3 bayonet strikes. However like Blob mentioned; the idea of the class was to make melee a very unattractive proposition in exchange for accuracy. Currently I see riflemen putting up quite a damn good fight against bayoneted men with very limited hesitation because the amount of bounces that occur with a bayonet during spin melee generally results in the rifleman getting quite a few good side swings in.

That being said, it still requires good melee skill to wield effectively.