What happened to this mod?

[Pavel]

Hello all. I came back to NI recently after almost a several months-long break only to find out that this just isn't the mod I started playing around 2 years ago. The infantry class seems to have become completely worthless (with a few exceptions). Pretty much every successful Hard or Rag game I played over the past few days was simply a mega cading + shooting/throwing spam; even the RGs couldn't find any use, not to mention the Zweis. I myself didn't feel exactly useless simply because I'm a legionary, but even then there was no point in me being an infantry hero - hell, I would have done more as a T4 Pikeman.

I guess this might be a result of most players having extremely high-tier equipment now, but I still think it should be addressed. Perhaps buffing Infantry hit points & melee damage (thinking of Full Invasion), or nerfing ranged damage, etc?

Thank you for reading this, and I'd love to see other people's opinions on this.

[DR.]

Well both ways can be done just this one became popular lately.

Who do you trust a rg or a wall cade.


And dont think a buff would happen.

[Noname]

It's good to see some veteran players return to NI, although infantry is still more useful than what it might seem like.

You mentioned the "mega cading runs"; This requires wealthy players that can afford wall barricades and a team with a high firepower = a lot DPS. Now if you're lacking the cades, for example if there are only SHC (Short Heavy Barricade) bringers, the team won't get far by just cading - Royal Guards (shielders) are far more durable than any cades and are able to repair their shields after every wave. Apart from that they are the only ones that can properly hold the bosses so as to stop them from going rogue on the team members.
Zweihanders still play an important role in overall gameplay, they put out a lot of damage and thus keep bots staggered to make the shielders last longer. Depending on the map and gear of the team, full infantry runs can actually be faster than cading ones: There is no need to refill ammo, just one healer and an anvil.
The Legionnaire is a good support for the team in more than one way, it can attack with throwables or slash/shield if needed.

Personally I don't think there will be full cading runs only: On argument for those are the new quests giving 500k for boss kills, but it requires a decent team at least to make wave 5 (Followers) or 12 (Thor) on Rag. Same goes for wave 9 (Juggernauts) on Hard, which can easily wipe a run.

[Akcyn]

Well, I'll add my opinion: Only small team - less than 8 can do rag without shielders, healers, slashers, if have a lot of walls, tomes and barrels. RG need good teamwork and they should not stay afk, I wish to ban any shielded, which is died, bcause he stayed afk for long time and died because shield wasn't repaired, got crushed and didn't changed to new one. Also I think Zwei is just a bit useless class, that's why I want some special weapons for them and buff bcause Marauder has more dmg and weapon length and also can be used as ranged if unused as slashers. Zwei's are not so universal class and they didn't received smth special to cover this hole...
Excuse my poor English.

[Scarecrow]

At least 5 runs last night with Royal Guards, all were successful. Ranged runs are more popular recently, but all Infantry classes are still used.

[Rowan]

going rogue

Star Wars reference?

[Black_Kitten*]

+Aksyn
IMHO
Because the wallcading is more reliable. Many infantry players to like risk, die -- and rip teams tactic. Need use tome for 1 player...

[Eyleen]

Alright, I feel like I should comment on this because I definitely helped making these cade runs more popular.

These runs with lots of wall barricades work extremely well on small teams, like akcyn mentioned, the only problem with scaling them up to full teams, is that on a team of 5-6 players you can easily have 3+ people bringing a wall, while on runs with 16 players most of the time you still just have 3-5 players bringing one, with some exceptions of course. That rarely scales well with the increase of bots spawning, and makes the traditional way of playing with a shielder gap more viable actually.

However, with the recent changes, being an infantry is significantly less appealing than it used to be. Shielder already was sort of the most boring part you can play in a team, but now with all the crush through enemies, snipers everywhere, killing you through shield, and large rewards for quests, which all require you to kill something, it is just not something I can enjoy playing anymore. Inf is alright for normal and hard mode, because those are both too easy anyway, when compared to ragnarok, but even on hard mode it already becomes difficult to properly contribute as an infantry on the later waves, unless you get a shielder/slasher spot. Usually when I play on hard as infantry I just run around outside the barricades and try to engage the bots 1v1, but quite often that ends with me getting killed in one hit. Because quite honestly, infantry armor is simply too weak. Thats why I would suggest to buff all infantry armor by a substantial amount, something like +20%, because infantry could be so much more fun if you are able to survive at least 2 hits even from stronger bots.

[Bobo]

I think the change in the gameplay comes from the structure change of the community. It seems there are less players overall these days, less new ppl come while many long time players remain. That results in an average player being much wealthier. It's not unusual to have 4 wall bringers + 3 tome bringers on server. The top tier support items' used to be rare 2 years ago and now they are common. So the team walls off and you have to be careful for enemy ranged only.

Same refers to weaps: it was typical CTS were the best throwables on server in the old days, you have Dragon Breath available for pikemen in many runs now. So there are stronger cades at hand and at the same time the enemy inf get killed more quickly.

One possible remedy (that doesn't require the items stats change) could be the maps: on a map with the only available spot for ranged that is beyond the cadeing spot (instead of aside) you can't wall off and there's no way to hold the enemy without shielders, take a look at Caravan Ambush and compare to the Great Hall.

[bluzark]

This is not a class issue, it is people server hopping to easier/faster maps that require less shielders and can be caded off.