Feeling useless in Hard mode!

[OneEyE]

Am I the only Inf that is feeling useless in hard mode? On higher waves (10+) we are not able to do something. We just hiding and waiting maybe picking one mob out but the chance to survive is near zero. The Valkyrie attacking overhead and killing us with crush through, even against a 2h sword it works. Iam really near to respec or quit. Its so frustating to play. They chamber you all the time, i trained to chamber back but after 2 or 3 chamber they got you. Its just rubbish. Against this better version of the Valkyrie i need with my eastern katana 7 or 8 hits to kill one. A Knight has no probs and with the new lance (50p) it will be much easier. And a archer use the run and shot tactic. And with the bear armor and a dreaded war pick they can defend themself. And iam not a noob iam playing warband since beta and know how to fight. So my Infantry friends what you think about it?

EDIT: Sorry, but I just had to change the grammar in the first sentence. MrG

[Sphinx]

No one doubt your skills OneEye, and I can vouch for them if they do. People dont like when commandos join servers because the new flavour of the month is Knights kiting by themselves or with snipers killing Ranged. Commandos just stand and do nothing or like you said, try to pick one out of the mob but when it gets to Valks, there's nothing they can do. Jotnes, same exact thing, just even harder. The only things before Thor that Snipers can't outrun is Loke and Crazed Zerks, but for the rest they can hit and run and kill mostly everything. The only thing stopping knights are ranged units, but when they play by themselves, there are so few that once dead ,it's very easy (Just long). But with that new lance, except more and more people respecing to Knights. How many people respec in the last week ? I'd be surprised by the number. Once you get to Mounted Soldiers and Thor, it's game over anyway

[FinKone]

Everyone in my house is respecing knight, as knight was once the "bad choice" for the class, Infantry has some how replaced them...

There are very few commandos left in our house... sad...

Players always respond to the games demands and adjust - and this is the latest trend.  I'm still a commando...

[Sphinx]

"Flavour of the month" .. It's like that in every game that has an obvious advantage.

It will be so popular that it will get nerfed , people will respec again , then too few will be left, it will get a buff , back and forth ... same shit happened in cRPG or any other games. It's hard to perfectly balance a game.

Btw , update your server FinKone, you're so February 2012

[Straws]

The knight nerf had it coming tbh, I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet. EDIT: Apparently a sniper can solo to pretty high waves as well.
I definitely think commando needs a buff, but I'm not sure how that would be done.

[Sphinx]

Higher damage weapons that can only be used by commandos ? But next thing you know, they are dropped in Normal and low level become OP with these for the actual level of difficulty. At least when I drop hurricane in Normal , people can't use it, it doesnt really aim well (no precision) and they rather keep their bow and do Headshots. So having weapons taht require 30 STR might make them not pickable by low levels and be mostly only use in Hard mode... Give Commandos more IF ?

[Huscarlton Banks]

Well, Commandos have a lot going against them in hard mode.

1. All of the later enemies run faster than the commando, due to armor weight and/or agility differences.
2. Later enemies have crush-through capabilities, which effect Commandos the most, since they can only do their job at point blank, and cannot hit-and-run like Knights.
3. Even with higher Ironflesh, and more armor, Commandos will usually only be able to take one or two more hits before dying compared to a Sniper or a Knight.
4. Most of the high end Commando weapons deal Cut damage, which is vastly inferior to pierce or blunt, due to the high armor values seen in hard mode.

Armor gives damage soak (some amount of damage has no effect) and damage reduction (rest of the damage has reduced effect).  Soak and reduction values are different for each type of damage but the same for all armors.  Damage is rolled from 50-100% of the listed weapon's damage.  Armor also rolls from 50-100% of listed rating.  Result is damage roll*(1-soak*armor roll)*(1-reduction percentage).

armor_soak_factor_against_cut = 0.8
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce = 0.65
armor_soak_factor_against_blunt = 0.5
armor_reduction_factor_against_cut = 1.0
armor_reduction_factor_against_pierce = 0.5
armor_reduction_factor_against_blunt = 0.75

The only thing Commandos are really good at is functioning as self-replenishing deployable shields, which seems to be frowned upon as a gameplay strategy. Given the nature of the Commando's role in the battlefield, it'll be really hard to balance between unplayable and unstoppable juggernaut since there isn't a way for them to hit-and-run enemies that have much lower armor weights.

[Kriegstofu]

we commandos need WAY better armour, atm knight got the same armor, we need around, lets say if they got 56 we need 76, just a reason to stay commando, each class got the same gauntlets as commando, so commando needs more and way better armor as also an heavy sledgehammer

[Blondin]

Hey, that's what i told to Hypernoma yesterday on irc, infantry needs some love!!

Atm, there is no real specialization from commando:
- Armors are almost the same, no need to be commando to have a good armor (even sniper can have 50 armor).
- huscarl shield is too banal, anyone can have one at wave 1, any level32 "noob" can grab 3 huscarl shield and be efficient as a commando.
- weapons : with poleaxe and cutter, knight are more powerful than a commando (cutter is almost better than an obsi), steel sword is nice but doesn't make a big difference.
- stat : same no big difference here, commando doesn't have a real better damage resistance. Neither they do better damages.

Only role is meat shield, but anyone can do it, commando doesn't find his place and doesn't give any different advantages to his team.
I don't speak of reward this is another problem, stated in many other threads.

Some options and ideas that could be found on forum :
- higher strengh cap (will give a bit of damage and resistance) and more PS)
- more IF (better resistance)
- a better shield than huscarl, what about a swadian round steel shield? (With a better resistance to crushthrough)
- better armor, only for commando that can allow to take huge load of damage
- a new ability : short burst of damage or armor once per round
- better pierce and blunt weapons
- may be double the hit point

The idea is not to allow commando to solo waves, but to give more interest in this class and more fun to players.
Commando are a must in normal mod, it's disapointing when you go on hard, you feel like a poor puppy that try to bite with his little teeth but didn't hurt anyone, puppy are cute, give some love to puppy  

[MrGuarnere]

Commando are a must in normal mod, it's disapointing when you go on hard, you feel like a poor puppy that try to bite with his little teeth but didn't hurt anyone, puppy are cute, give some love to puppy

I feel exactly like this. In normal mode its fun and actually something gets done but in hard its trying to survive the first few waves thats the challenge.

I agree with the comments that Commandos need an advantage. I know they have a 9 shield skill but they need more if they are going to be surrounded by 10 Veteran Huscarls, which is often the case on hard mode. Snipers and Knights can run away, we cant.