No.
You know what: Pikes got nerfed with every patch. Not sheathable, 3 slots, a lot less damage, even alot less speed, unbalanced and so on. I am a dedicated pikeman and everything is fine now, I never complained when any of these nerfs came (ok, I also play 2h from time to time) and I agree that pikes aka long spear were a bit OP like half a year ago when they still were balanced and had more speed, but now there good. Not to good, and not to bad. My next Gen will be 2h nonetheless ...
The historical inaccuracy of the OP's post makes my head want to explode.
Other than that, I think that pikes are mostly fine. If they would just fix the magic spin-thrust that lightsabers its way through people, I'd be happy.
Anyway, history has proven time and time again that the ability to damage your enemy when they cannot reach you is always a good thing.
I gota go right now, but what is wrong about it exactly? And the makers of the total war series seem to agree with me, the melee stats for pike troops are atrocious.
I gota go right now, but what is wrong about it exactly? And the makers of the total war series seem to agree with me, the melee stats for pike troops are atrocious.
Historically, pikes were devestating against infantry.Just started playing Medieval 2 again. Could you please tell me these hidden bonuses, animation bonuses and whatnot? Or give a link to where I can read up on them? Could google them up, but I'm guessing you know exactly where to find it. Thanks beforehand!
As a Total War M2TW:K Modder, the Pike has such a stupid powerful animation that it has low attack numbers for a reason. Fight Swiss Pikemen and get back to me on that, or the Papal Guard (iirc those names). Numbers can be false advertising if you don't understand the hidden bonuses (located in the xml files) or the attack animations.
Animations are why an identical stat Spear and shield unit will always lose against an identical stat Sword and shield unit.
First off, total war is a game and needs some balancing factor. Pikes were also not only used anti-cav. Tightly packed spear or pikemen are INCREDIBLY effective against infantry. As a pike square can present multiple ranks of pikes in a direction it makes it incredibly difficult for infantry to even approach. Especially with the 2nd and 3rd ranks protecting the front rank. In a loose formation, sure, pikes aren't that effective, but trained forces didn't use them that way.
Also, the romans got their asses handed to them on multiple occasions by phalanx formations. Generally the romans only won those encounters when the phalanx was thrown into disarray. The romans hated going up against phalanxes and had a hell of a lot of trouble with them until they discovered how vulnerable their flanks were.
Lemmy I seem to recall you on multiple occasions telling me I should use a different weapon because the pike was so terrible that it was nearly useless... what changed your mind, hmm? :lol: :lol:
I'm also interested to find out which battle you were in that had this massive number of pikes that decimated your force.
I'd also like to know when you last saw someone with a PIKE use a shield with it? Because, just fyi, it's impossible.
Oh, and I should note, the pike does slow the movement of the user down quite a lot. The longer the weapon that someone is holding, the more it slows them down. Also, you DO realize the Pike is the slowest melee weapon in the game already, right? Only one slower is the great lance, but it can't be thrust. Not to mention with the unbalanced tag it has a thrust-stun of around a full second.
Longspear is faster, sure, but it's still hella slow and has a nasty thrust stun, and doesn't have nearly the range of the Pike.
Sheilds nullify the effectiveness of pikes in melee combat. You can walk right up to the enemy line and they cant touch you. As far as flanking goes, these battles arent gigantic, they are small scale battles, one side or the other gets flanked in every engagement. Its would be especially easy to flank a group of pikemen if they were moving slowly, as they should be. On top of all that, its not like any clan would even be able to fight together in a phalanx style, the battle i refereed to in my post consisted of an unorganized clusterfuck.
As far as the roman stuff, looking at their wars against Macedon and the Seleucid empire, the only greeks they really fought, they crushed the greeks in every recorded battle except 2, one of which they took very few casualties anyways, and the other they were a small contingent in support of another greek army fighting against the Macedonians. I believe one battle had the romans killing 50,000 greeks while losing less than 400 men http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Magnesia . Or another battle were they killed 25,000 greeks while only losing 1,000 men http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pydna. Pikes and the phalanx are super effective huh. Seriously bronze age tactics shouldn't be owning a medieval game like crgp.
Shields don't nullify pikes. In spear/pike warfare you are never attacked from straight ahead. It's usually the pikeman on either side of the one you are facing. Also, ATS used to fight in a Phalanx style back in the day and they were pretty effective. If you REALLY want to see those tactics used in-game you should play some Vikingr during one of their events. It's pretty crazy.
Also, the Greeks beat the Romans many times during the Pyrrhic War. They did pretty damn good considering the fact that Greece wasn't united and was also under-funded and under-manned compared to the Romans. If the Romans had invaded 100 years earlier (before Greece was falling apart) I think the results would have been VERY different.
The Romans also got their asses handed to them many times by the Carthaginians during the Punic Wars. The Carthaginians also used the Phalanx during that conflict.
Pikes were also incredibly effective in Medieval and later periods. I'm guessing you've never heard of Swiss Pikemen? Pikes dominated battlefields until the introduction of firearms.
Yes when i think of troops and nations that dominated the medival battlefields, i think of the Swiss and there pikemen, gaurding the Pope in their fancy uniforms, they did such a good job. I dont think about the English long bowmen or the French knights that actually dominated the battlefield.
Yes when i think of troops and nations that dominated the medival battlefields, i think of the Swiss and there pikemen, gaurding the Pope in their fancy uniforms, they did such a good job. I dont think about the English long bowmen or the French knights that actually dominated the battlefield.
I don't like how effective pikes are as melee support right now, just because they greatly outpace almost every other option in terms of support-style play. It's not so much a matter of them being used incorrectly, it's just that they're very, very effective, which unfortunately gives the class too much sway over the outcome of the battle.
Right now a pikeman plays like a shotgun-style crossbowman that can block with his crossbow, shoot through his teammates, curve his bolt in midair, stop a charging horse, and reload almost instantly. Granted, this comes at the cost of having your bolts blocked by a downblock, but even that becomes a strength. The threat of getting stabbed forces enemy melee players nearby to choose between holding downblocks (taking hits from your teammates) and blocking your teammates (taking your stabs).
All of this said, I still don't think they should be nerfed, per se. They've been hit patch after patch, and they're still tremendously useful. Nerfing has proven to be ineffective. Instead they need to be reworked somehow, to bring their supporting power to a level that's in-line with other support classes. If I knew how, I'd have made a thread awhile ago, but for now stat nerfs aren't the answer. All it does is piss off pikemen, rather than balancing their effectiveness in battle. Taking away overheads through teammates was a good start, but changes to speed, damage, etc., aren't going to change how they weapon is played.
The problem with thrusts in general in this game is the ridiculous spinning for speed bonus effect. This goes for Germans, Espadas, etc- it's not a Pike or even polearm only issue.
As far as the history debate that has started up here, pikes were used effectivly in a few battles by the swiss over a few decades and sparingly by the germans and scots, not really a big deal and nothing came of it.
When i said that to you it was in a battle server and i think it was after i killed you in a duel at the end of a round. In that situation, being in a battle server and fighting somene one on one yes its a shitty weapon. But with a group of people working together like in a strat battle where everyone has pikes, they are overpowered. While i acknowledged the fact taht even when running around on your own with a pike, the pike is unrealistic with teh speed you can move and the lawl stabbing and bunny hoping, i didnt care because it was still easy to fight someone who has it. But now that ive seen them in strat battles these unrealsitc and unfair features can no longer be ignored, they must be fixed.
The battle was at hanun which we fought last night, i guess you werent there, chaos had a shit ton of pikes and crushed us with them. The crpg equip web site doesnt say u cant use with a sheild, but at the same time i was generalizing pikes with other long spears. You were plate armor and have a pike and can outrun most people, when i was infantry i had 6 or 7 athletics and wore medium armor and i dont think i could catch you. Almost every semi-decent piker ive seen has a ton of athletics and is very fast. If weapon length slows you down already its clearly nto slowing people down enough. The lawl stabbing and bunny hopping is also a huge problem as i mentioned. In my opinion the bunny hop stabbing is almost as bad as the speed. Also as someoen else mentioned the side swiping, and stabbing people who are way close to you. Even in movies if you see phalanx troops you seem them moving extremely slowly, cause thats how it was. You only see someone with a long spear running 30 miles an hour and jumping 6ft in the air and spinning around stabbing people in kung foo movies, and they did that much shorter spears.
But what does any of that have to do with the realism of a pike. Once again people couldnt lawlstab in real life, move quickly with a pike in real life, or jump around in real life, or even block attacks.
At any rate for what reasons, real reasons, should pikers should be able to do any of the things i listed in teh first paragraph.
Zarren pikes wouldnt be useless if you got rid of lawl stabbing, they would still be good agaisnt cavalry, that is what they are for. Lawlstabbing is harder to block than someone with a longspear just trying to stab you, which is why everyone uses pikes.
Please, for the love of god, do not say they are good for anti-cav. Yes, historically, they were. In cRPG, without help, my Pike most times cannot take down a horse. I can do little more than rear them, then by the time they are turning to go the other way, I stab them in the butt if I'm lucky.
Correct ....Pikes are the most unrealistic and bugged fantasy weapons in crpg
If it was my decision, I'd "adjust" the pike all the way out of the game.
Yeah, and archery is absolutely realistic in this game where you headshot one through half the map with a higher accuracy then most modern pistols.
You've clearly never gone shooting, nor have you played much with bows recently in this game.
With the first part you're wrong, with the second you're right. But still I sometimes get headshotted over a distance ingame where you wouldn't hit anything with a pistol for sure in RL :wink:
OP is complaining about weapons being used how they should?
I was in this battle too, i was very impressed by the massive pike / long spear use. I thought it very effective.
Something i noticed right off the bat, it was very vulnerable to archer fire and throwing weapons. We had roughly 7-10 archers in the group, and they were all over the place. If they would have stood together and concentrated their fire they would have been devastating to the pikemen.
Remove everything except 1h swords. Shields, 2h, pike, spear, throwing, archery, horse, they all have to go. Maybe then people stop complaining.
Remove everything except 1h swords. Shields, 2h, pike, spear, throwing, archery, horse, they all have to go. Maybe then people stop complaining.this would actually be very fun
Remove everything except 1h swords. Shields, 2h, pike, spear, throwing, archery, horse, they all have to go. Maybe then people stop complaining.
If a longbow or crossbow were to shoot you, you might not die but you sure as hell won't get up.
I could go on forever but dont use realism as the basis for why a weapon should or should not be tweaked. This is a game, the mechanics are NOT real, and it needs to be balanced based on what is happening IN GAME.
1v1 a pike is pretty crappy. However, I dont know anyone that will engage 1v1 with a pike. Most of them have high enough athletics they will run until they find a teamate, and can take massive advantage of run/jump lolspin. They are used in swarms, where you cant just sit there and down block or your head will be cut off by the guy next to him. They have such a massive range, if they are anything but solo you dont have much of a chance to engage them.Massive advantage? Downblock. Seriously, only idiots get hit by a lolspin more than once or twice. Anything that stops your movement during a spin means death, and the main reason to spin is to polestun the attacker so they can return to their teammates.
They can be swung around and through walls, as well as around and through your/their own teamates. It can take such a huge advantage of the faulty mechanics in this game, I really feel it needs to be nerfed. There is no other weapon other than the long spear that can perform such feats.
I personally feel this weapon encourages poor and dishonorable play and needs to be heavily re-evaluated.You mean teamwork? Just in case you cite 1v1's, downblock. Suddenly, you can never die.
*50m is max effective range for pistols. Most ranges dont even have 50m pistol targets, but you could go to the rifle range. Sure you can shoot and with blind luck hit something farther. An AK going 1500m accurately?? The bullet tumbles and fans as it flies, so good luck with that. it is possible but still HIGHLY unlikely.
Hitting through teammates is limited to the pike.
i only hate when i am stopped with my armored pony,and some my old friend come and hit my pony once and kill it even if i don't move. So pike removes 70% health to my armored pony. I realy hate pikers,but i use it when i fight in strat. I like to stab unaware infrantery. So side stabs with pike should deal less dmg to armored ponies,arrows too.So... you're saying, pike is ok if I'm not the one fighting it.
Joker.. I'm suffering from same illness as you with writing too long posts. Anyhow.. Try to write shorter.. No one can be assed to read anything in that wall of text.
And I think the top long 2h and polearms are too flexible all rounders. Need nerf. Everyone is using them, see my other ragethread.
Also, nerf cav. (Pondering about writing a rageful suggestion that they should not be able to headshot with their lances, or at least get the lance damage nerfed, or their speed bonus.. but that will be in time.)
=crpg fixed.
(Ranged is OK atm)
pike reach with two type of frontal attack, current broken sweetspot mechanics and instastab and slower turning speed, no jump stabs, three slots, unsheathable, unbalanced?
Now this is something I really doubt. Have you ever bothered reading some medal of honor citations? Dudes take liek 30 bullets, have limbs blown away, and maintain the presence of mind to slaughter dozens of chocolate chip cookies single handedly while coordinating troop movements and saving their men. An arrow or xbow bolt causes significantly less trauma and damage then bullets do. Nerf ranged.
You know those ninjas from 80s B movies, where one and the only skilled ninja beats up whole group of ninjas using teamplay :wink:
You need to do some research on newtons, area, and impact damage. You clearly have no idea what you talking about. I like physics and currently in college for it
You need to do some research on newtons, area, and impact damage. You clearly have no idea what you talking about. I like physics and currently in college for it(far from being done, however I do know enough). A longbow would fuck your world up with a 100lb draw weight(Max estimated 200lb on longbow). Bullets pierece the body, but cause relatively little impact damage due to size until you start getting into larger rounds(ie 50 cal sniper that can cut a man in half). If you are shot 30 times and still living/moving, it isnt a big round. Arrows/crossbows and bullets are no where near close to the same type of damage.
That would be luck then, those arrow headshots are hardly "on demand" otherwise half of the enemy team would be dead 40 seconds out of spawn from range.
As for the firearm "pistol" comment: A Glock has an effective range of about 50 meters, and heavens knows you can "lob" luck shots farther then that, just like you can "drop" shots with an AK-47 at a kilometer and a half or more if you know what you are doing, despite it being farther then the "effective range." Either that, or the base security squadron is hacking real life. Now compare with modern longbows that have an effective range of 180 meters, and even "era appropriate" longbows had more then half that effective range (Actually era appropriate bows have ranges near-dead on with the 180 meter/200 yard figure I gave.)
TL:DR Version: Modern pistol bullets go really damn far if you don't care about accuracy, c-RPG arrow headshots from half way or across the map are largely luck, and most bows, ancient or modern, have effective ranges far above that of pistols.
Joker.. I'm suffering from same illness as you with writing too long posts. Anyhow.. Try to write shorter.. No one can be assed to read anything in that wall of text.