POLL: Should Ranged Units switch to melee attack in close combat?

[Lotor13]

• YES, ranged units should have (weaker) melee attack in close combat
• NO, keep like it is

All range units in AoE3 have a melee attack , and this mechanic is already in AoE 4 - in the SP campaign, which is early version of AoE 4, for some “irrational” reason (I would be really interested, why), the developers cut it off from the final version.

I want to ask AoE community here (or even developers), what do You think about it?

I see this as step back, IMO the units in RTS should not work only with a theoretical rock-paper-scissors system, but also with the unit roles, in this case ranged units shoud be effective with missile attack, but uneffective in close combat, it is good both for “the immersion” and game balance

Good example is AoE2, where the infantry is not used in the practice , because ranged units are too effective (without melee attack) , its devs are trying to fix it with new tech “Gambesons” (+1 pierce) for militia line in latest patch

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You can see crosbowmen stats with ranged & melee attack

[BitStuffer]

I’m pretty sure this was the in case in the beta. I don’t remember if they took it away before or after the release though… Maybe it’s in the patch notes with a motivation.

[Veridamar]

Ammunition that regenerates while they are idle would be a nice expansion to that model. limiting their effectiveness in prolonged engagements.

[Adribird90]

How long has it been since you played AoE2?

[GoldenArmorX]

@Lotor13

You can see crosbowmen stats with ranged & melee attack

3.62 Attack Speed? (Crossbowmen)

Wow, the crossbowmen in the beta really were faithful to the slow reloading of the crossbow. I was just going to suggest that the crossbowman’s attack speed could be slowed down more while increasing his attack to be more faithful to his historical counterpart, but I see that even that was considered in the Beta. In fact it would have been a nice touch to keep it.

Anyway, 11 damage for a dagger attack seems exaggerated to me for a ranged unit, I think it should be 6 the same as the villagers and 3.75 atk/sec so that it is not as effective.

[Skadidesu]

Those are not the Beta stats, those are the Campaign stats.

The Campaign unit stats are based on the state of the game about 9 months before release so long before the Beta.

[Salgore]

No way. This is not Total war. Archers should shoot their bows even when in cose range. By changing this to weak close-quarter combat the devs would need to greatly change their stats in order to balance them. Leave as is. We have other problems that have more importance … like the lack of themed UI.

[Veridamar]

@Salgore

We have other problems that have more importance … like the lack of themed UI.

Agreed a themed UI and an Icon reskin for units and technologies to be more descriptive and colorful like in previous AoE games.

[Lotor13]

@Salgore

No way. This is not Total war. Archers should shoot their bows even when in cose range. By changing this to weak close-quarter combat the devs would need to greatly change their stats in order to balance them. Leave as is. We have other problems that have more importance … like the lack of themed UI.

It works absolutely fine in AoE3 and AoE4 campaign mode

the principe is actually same as in Total War, Archers should not be effective in close combat, it adds deep into strategy game (not just simple rock-papper-scissors)

themed UI would be nice, but it is just “cosmetic feature”, melee attack for ranged units in close combat would improve the game in practice

[BitStuffer]

The campaign has a completely different balancing, I consider it almost a different game.

A middle ground option would be having a melee attack with the same stats as the ranged one, so the balancing wouldn’t change. Or at least the same DPS, like half the damage but double the speed. Like AoE3 in many cases.

[Lotor13]

@BitStuffer

A middle ground option would be having a melee attack with the same stats as the ranged one, so the balancing wouldn’t change. Or at least the same DPS, like half the damage but double the speed. Like AoE3 in many cases.

That is no solution, the point is that the (majority) ranged units should not be effective in close combat like in range combat

player would need to keep archers out of close comabat

[Salgore]

Archers are already too balanced as is. If they make this, they will need to buff their arrow attack a lot.

[VoidMaker5560]

No because if i right click with my archer i want to know what will happen.

I don’t want the archer to start moving suddenly and tey to reach the other unit in melee.

At least if they do that they need be able to shoot a distant unit while they have another enemy unit next to them so they don’t start walking towards enemy.

[Veridamar]

The archer should stand ground when they do a melee attack on a unit right next to them, and if the unit falls back they would just go back to shooting arrows at them

[Lotor13]

I would like to purposely revive this topic due to discusion about missile unit balance…

[Llorsh]

I agree.

(I’m new in the forum, how can I link the exact comment I am replying?)

[GoldenArmorX]

Hello Llorsh, if you whan to quote, or link comments, first selection the text you want to quote, and the options gonna appear down of your selection. Choose the one that says “Quote”.

Selecciona algo de texto y aparecera la palabra Quote, aprieta y se pega directamente en tu nuevo comentario.

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@Lotor13

I would like to purposely revive this topic due to discusion about missile unit balance…

On the subject, yes you are right archers are going to become too strong, especially the English ones and I don’t think the reason we leave the Siege war is to enter the Longbow wars, hehe.

As a counter there are many solutions discussed in other threads.

• Bosting Infantry HP: One of them was “bobbing the base HP of the infantry” given the change of “Elite Army Tactics” no longer includes this bonus.
• Reduce Archer Base Atk damage, but improve Bonus damage: Another was to reduce the archer’s base attack even more (to the level of the yumi archer for example) and instead increase its bonuses against the units it must counter (spearman, horse archers, light infantry of powder range),
• Bosting cavalry even more (could be counterwise).
• Ranged units weak in melee combat: I proposed to reduce their close range combat abilities, suggesting that they have a negative resistance debuff to melee combat (like battering rams: +40% damage taken from melee attacks).

What you propose is good, and falls into the category of reducing their melee combat abilities.

In fact, because this patch is resurrecting ancient mechanics of the Beta version or Season 0, (Silk Arrows and the “Incendiary Arrows original function” came from there), maybe also close range attack of range units would also return, clearly with a very low, LOW damage, and low attack speed.

[Llorsh]

@GoldenArmorX

Selecciona algo de texto y aparecera la palabra Quote, aprieta y se pega directamente en tu nuevo comentario.

Thanks, finally I can do it

@GoldenArmorX

Reduce Archer Base Atk damage, but improve Bonus damage: Another was to reduce the archer’s base attack even more (to the level of the yumi archer for example) and instead increase its bonuses against the units it must counter (spearman, horse archers, light infantry of powder range),

I still think this can be the best option. It would keep the balance between archers-villagers-spearmans but make them even weaker against armored infantry or cavalry, so they would be an actual counter. Nowadays, cavalry can’t counter a mass of archers and they won’t be able in season 9.

@GoldenArmorX

Bosting cavalry even more (could be counterwise).

Not the best idea, specially in lower ranks where people don’t know how to defend and get harassed by horsemans or knights and lose all their villagers. This would be a buff to Mongols, so I wouldn’t do this.

@GoldenArmorX

Ranged units weak in melee combat: I proposed to reduce their close range combat abilities, suggesting that they have a negative resistance debuff to melee combat (like battering rams: +40% damage taken from melee attacks).

It is a good idea too.

[Lotor13]

I repost my thoughts from other topic

I think, here we are going to the point of the issue.

Archers, spears and horses are designated with rock-paper-scissors theory. With equal resource cost, archers beat spears, spears beat horses, and horses beat archers… in theory.

In the practice, it is bit more complicated, because these units act differently in combat. Horses move fast and archers have missle attack in contrast to other units.

The more archers are in the battle, the less horse units are effective against them. Because archers can shoot all at once, while horse units depend on surface area - they can not all target the same enemy unit, or have access to attack a unit.

This is why the RTS design should work with unit roles IMO, not just with rock-paper-scissors concept.

I guess, everybody knows Company of Heroes (CoH), CoH is perfect example how the RTS design works with unit roles and synergies between them aside of “counter system”. Like machine gun and mortar teams are counters to infantry, but they should be used in proper way, otherwise they can be easily killed by infantry squads. Machine guns and mortars have specific role in the battle, aside of being infantry counters.

That is why archers in Age of Empires should have weaker melee attack in close combat, their role has to be missile unit in battle, not just counter to infantry within rock-paper-scissors concept.

I think, In Age of Empires 2, no one trains militia-line units after fedual age (unless specific civilisation), bacause infantry is useless in practice too. That is another good example.

[Druidsbrook]

I would like to more nuance to the counter system as well, the game should encourage combined arms its more satisfying on a strategic level and more authentic to the setting. So yes ranged units should be at a disadvantage if infantry get into melee.