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

[Gamer]

Calm down? In no way am I mad or angry at anyone, I'm just expressing my opinions and around 30-40 people in the skirm detachment in the 77y.

I'm not forcing you to take my word like the law, I'm just backing up the number of other people in the game and on this forum.

Also I'm pretty sure more people agree that reducing damage of the rifle is wrong.

All we are asking for is for skirms to at least have a chance in melee regardless of historical accuracy or what the devs want the things to be like, because I'm afraid skirms want to be able to stand a chance in melee as well.


I feel like I have said what I wanted to say and I hope that the next beta update will make rifle melee bearable. After all, it is a beta, so change it and then people will give more feedback, obviously it may take some time but after all, it may make most people happy.

Thanks at least for taking the time to read what I have to say.

[Blobmania]

Spoiler

Just saying in a beta the FSE staff shouldn't be defending their actions as if you've already made your final decision about it. You guys should be taking into account what the community wants even if it doesn't work exactly with your original vision. If a lot of people want it then you should change it to something like what they want instead of being stubborn and going against people. And anyway like you just said yourself, it's better to accommodate people now then to resist them and face trouble later down the line when it'll be harder to change things.

[close]

We're not developers - we're commenting as community members giving input on the patch, just like everyone else is. Whilst we may know a little more about what goes on behind-the-scenes (Rejenorst in particular, being in charge of the voice acting), we're not the ones developing the Beta. The Dev team will make their own decisions about what to change, we're just exercising our privilege of input the same as everyone else.

@Angry_Piper

Well, it's a shame that regiment leaders don't work together enough for the Skirmisher class to reach its full potential in line battles, but that's a community issue and not a development one. You can't demand a class gets better stats just because people aren't using it right, or aren't co-operating properly in line battles. The whole point of a line battle is to promote teamwork between regiments - as a lone rifle regiment you can't take out a full line in a straight up fight because you're weak in melee. Fair enough. But you don't seem to realise that that line regiment is also meant to be able to do some damage to you in melee - which is what they are there for. From the example you've given, you're leading us to believe that it should be normal for a rifle regiment to take out a full line regiment with minimal casualties. They deserve to be able to kill you as much as you deserve to be able to kill them - you just need to adapt your strategy to encourage the latter.

All we are asking for is for skirms to at least have a chance in melee regardless of historical accuracy or what the devs want the things to be like, because I'm afraid skirms want to be able to stand a chance in melee as well.

The whole point of them being skirmishers is that they're meant to suck at melee and be strong at range. They are. Play the class properly.

[Gamer]

Play the class properly?

I'm sorry, but skirms sometimes have to go into melee. I'm not sure if you actually lead skirms in LB's but like Angry_Piper said, sometimes your team may not be the best and while you are getting charged by a line, friendly lines may sit there and not get into melee. Therefore skirms must have A CHANCE of killing people in melee. At the moment (pre beta) we do have a chance, generally losing a lot of men but at least we kill some of theirs. But in the beta we don't, we would probably get  one or two kills and all 15 of us die.

I'm sorry but to me you seem to be defending a decision in a beta test like it is going to happen and should happen because you want skirms to behave in a way that you would like it to be. People who play as skirms want to be able to defend themselves when they are forced into melee.

[Blobmania]

Play the class properly?

I'm sorry, but skirms sometimes have to go into melee. I'm not sure if you actually lead skirms in LB's but like Angry_Piper said, sometimes your team may not be the best and while you are getting charged by a line, friendly lines may sit there and not get into melee. Therefore skirms must have A CHANCE of killing people in melee. At the moment (pre beta) we do have a chance, generally losing a lot of men but at least we kill some of theirs. But in the beta we don't, we would probably get  one or two kills and all 15 of us die.

I'm sorry but to me you seem to be defending a decision in a beta test like it is going to happen and should happen because you want skirms to behave in a way that you would like it to be. People who play as skirms want to be able to defend themselves when they are forced into melee.

Why do you have to have "A Chance" in melee. It's not your job to get into melee combat - if you get into a situation where you're unsupported by Line Infantry, then that's either your team's fault or your fault. Run the hell away and find some friendlies. Stop demanding that the game is balanced in your favour just because you occasionally get stuck with team-mates who don't co-operate. I have actually commanded skirmishers occasionally in Line Battles (albeit not recently), and I personally found that hanging around a friendly line (or even communicating personally with the commanders of that line, so they hang around you) works absolutely fine. Just because your LB allies don't help you when you need it doesn't mean the game is unbalanced, it means you need some new team-mates.

[Gamer]

Well why don't we just remove a skirmishers ability to melee?

[Blobmania]

Well why don't we just remove a skirmishers ability to melee?

Because then people would complain that it's unrealistic for Skirmishers to magically be unable to grab their rifle barrel and wave it around like a nutjob. Skirmishers can still block just as well as any other unit, so all you're really complaining about is their lack of value as some sort of super-awesome shock trooper in melee - which isn't what they are here for in the first place.

[Crayon]

You are wasting your time arguing on this, as I posted before:

Vincenzo has aLready said he is going to boost the rifle melee up a little again for next update so that it will be between the current and the beta in terms of melee whack.

The rifle slap damage went from 24 to 20 points of damage, ill put it to 22 next beta and see how that is, i will also give the rifle slightly more melee speed next beta, and see if that balances them out for our skirmishers.

So they ARE going to be boosted up a little again.
You may as well wait and see what that is like rather than continuing to argue over something that will very soon be irrelevant because it is being changed anyway.

[Gamer]

When did I complain about skirms not being as good/better than a bayonet or sword?

I understand your point of a skirmisher meant to be used as a long range unit, but why shouldn't they be able to kill someone in melee? All I am complaining about is the fact that you nerf something that was shit in the first place and which no one really complains about. I just want it to be like it was, did you think that they were some "sort of super-awesome shock trooper in melee" before the beta?


And @Crayon, I know it is going to be "increased", but why should it be decreased in the first place? Really makes no sense to me. I'm just trying to get my point across that 1) the decrease was absolutely unnecessary and 2) why do people not want skirms to have a chance in melee?

P.S. Thank god I haven't said anything about rifle v cav yet....


Also on the subject of shock troopers...

Spoiler

[close]

Is that how you see it as Blobmania?

[Slayer]

Well why don't we just remove a skirmishers ability to melee?

Because then people would complain that it's unrealistic for Skirmishers to magically be unable to grab their rifle barrel and wave it around like a nutjob. Skirmishers can still block just as well as any other unit, so all you're really complaining about is their lack of value as some sort of super-awesome shock trooper in melee - which isn't what they are here for in the first place.

Spoiler

LEARN TO READ BEFORE YOU FUCKING REPLY!

[close]

We're not asking for skirms to be shock troopers in melee, WE'RE ASKING FOR THEM TO BE OKAY IN MELEE LIKE THEY WERE PRE-BETA. The only thing we want is for the rifle to be the way it was and for the up attack to be fixed, BECAUSE IT REALLY ISN'T WORKING THE WAY IT SHOULD. You really should try to play with the rifle before you comment on how it is, because when I read what you write about it and how it functions I can obviously tell you are just a massive retard or lying about it.

[Oposum]

Rifles were never any good in melee - 2 of 4 attack directions are useless - overhead strike looks ridiculous and it's always slower than bayonet stab while rifle stab is even slower with the added benefit of doing almost no damage.
However, side attacks are spammable due to 2 handed animation and most of the bayo users have horrible footing which makes it easy to get 3 hits in a row without having to block. Still, experienced players won't allow you to spam them and bayonet will scratch-kill anything that's not line infantry or armored cavalry.

On the other hand, cavalry muskets are beyond ridiculous, their long range is increased even further by 2 handed anims (cav musket swing is only tiny amount shorter than bayonet stab). Their length and speed gives them really really big angular velocity, meaning that you can spam bayonet guys at cav muskets optimal length. Coupled with "abusing" the 2h polearm stab anims and low turning speeds, it's a can of spam waiting to be unleashed on the unwary.

I think that rifle melee nerf should be just slapping the unbalanced tag on the weapon rather than lowering its already low damage.

[Theophilos]

Although I heven't played the Beta yet, so I don't know the complete impact of the current change, I think that lowering the range of the heavy cav sword isn't the best of ideas, so I have a suggestion regarding that.

• Fix the model of the heavy cav sword, so that it actually is 3cm longer than it is now, to take away the 'ghost' range of the sword.
• To balance the length of the sword, slightly decrease the damage done. (36c to 35 or 34)
• Either slightly increase horse speed and manueverability, or revert the health decrease

The reason I'd like to see this is that heavy cav should be able to charge infantry right in the face, and, as of now (without beta), the sword is exactly the right range to outrange a musket, but only when you really use the very tip of your blade.
And I still do not understand why you guys don't take away the Russian Cossacks, and give UK it's much needed hussars. If you get rid of the Cossacks, you won't have any 'too many units' memory issues.

Other than that, brilliant job on the fixes and changes!

I hope they would never take away the cossacks, that makes no sense they were very important part of the russian military (and also history and culture), much more so than the newly added lancers in each perspective.

[dooomninja]

We're not asking for skirms to be shock troopers in melee, WE'RE ASKING FOR THEM TO BE OKAY IN MELEE LIKE THEY WERE PRE-BETA. The only thing we want is for the rifle to be the way it was and for the up attack to be fixed, BECAUSE IT REALLY ISN'T WORKING THE WAY IT SHOULD.

i have to disagree we don't want them to be ok we want the to just be poor rather than utterly worthless.

and on what Oposum said you don't need to be experienced to stop a rifle spamming you to death all you need to do is learn to side block

[Rejenorst]

Just saying in a beta the FSE staff shouldn't be defending their actions as if you've already made your final decision about it. You guys should be taking into account what the community wants even if it doesn't work exactly with your original vision. If a lot of people want it then you should change it to something like what they want instead of being stubborn and going against people. And anyway like you just said yourself, it's better to accommodate people now then to resist them and face trouble later down the line when it'll be harder to change things.

The decision seems to have already been made to put rifles back the way they were before the beta. The problem is that the only time people actually come in here to give their input is when their annoyed at something or disagree with a particular change. And usually people get annoyed or disagree with a particular change when its way to late to change it. Now everyone has a chance to give input but like I have said before FSE have tended to act on the opinions of a few far to quickly to the detriment of others and themselves. Hence its best to have the discussion especially in the usual absence of those who made the complaints in the first place.

Spoiler

Calm down? In no way am I mad or angry at anyone, I'm just expressing my opinions and around 30-40 people in the skirm detachment in the 77y.

I'm not forcing you to take my word like the law, I'm just backing up the number of other people in the game and on this forum.

Also I'm pretty sure more people agree that reducing damage of the rifle is wrong.

All we are asking for is for skirms to at least have a chance in melee regardless of historical accuracy or what the devs want the things to be like, because I'm afraid skirms want to be able to stand a chance in melee as well.


I feel like I have said what I wanted to say and I hope that the next beta update will make rifle melee bearable. After all, it is a beta, so change it and then people will give more feedback, obviously it may take some time but after all, it may make most people happy.

Thanks at least for taking the time to read what I have to say.

[close]

No problems and my apologies. Its just I see such impassioned language like "for god's sake" etc so its hard to tell, without the person in front of you, whether they're shouting at you or not. For my part I like to test people's views to make sure FSE is making the right decisions. Personally I have no problem with skirms being kept as they were before beta. Its just I feel some of the observations made are contrary to my own experience ie: such as 2 of the skirmisher attack swings being useless etc.

Anyway man cheers for the feedback and apologies if I made it a bit frustrating for you to give you feedback unimpeded D:

[Jorvasker]

Its pretty good I love all the new maps gives new maps Cop can use for his siege event lol...also from what I saw I didn't see any bugs

[The Norseman]

I dont mind making the skirms worse, or the cav, especially cav, as long as you keep the infantry the way it is, or better, I am happy.