cRPG

cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Game Balance Discussion => Topic started by: AngryScotsman on January 06, 2011, 03:01:37 am

Title: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: AngryScotsman on January 06, 2011, 03:01:37 am
A forewarning to those of you apes who are incapable of rational thinking, have the attention span of the arse end of a camel or have nothing useful to add to this world: this post requires you to follow my reasoning and see why I think cavalry isn't overpowered.

System vs. Behaviour

Firstly, I will define this model I will use to describe this perceived problem.

"System" can be defined as the mechanical aspects of CRPG relating to cavalry; such as cavalry weapons, anti-cavalry weaponry, horse statistics, etc.
"Behaviour" can be defined as the habits, tactics, methods of coping with or defeating cavalry players use against them, etc.

Secondly, there is an important practical distinction between something be overpowered because of  the mechanics of the system and something being 'overpowered' due to the (bad) behaviour of people. I will paraphrase a conclusion relating to health and safety law that I think is a useful paradigm in this case. 'Systems don't make mistakes, people do'.

Thus, in order to make this argument, I will have to discuss why I think the System of cavalry in CRPG is innately balanced.

Countering Cavalry

I'll address plated chargers mainly: if the argument applies to them, it applies to other warhorses.

Players don't like the durability of the plated charger. Nor do they like its ability to take chunks out of a players health bar by riding into them. These are poor arguments against the plate charger because of reasons (mainly poor tactics) I will describe further below when I discuss Behaviour. But for now, I will make an observation. A great many players who complain about the plated charger attempt to defeat it using the wrong type of weapon. These same players may also fail to acknowledge that their builds have to have weaknesses. In the end of the day, if one player invests as a cavalry character, and you invest as a foot based character, you would be an idiot to not have acknowledged the threat against you from the cavalry. To that end, the polearms weapon set is a versatile weapon tree that includes many weapons that, if you had been built to counter cavalry properly, you would have no problem with.

The Only Proper Cavalry Counter (As In Reality) Is A Pike

Consider the Long Awlpike. It's a long weapon that can stop a horse attacking you at a 45 degree angle (a tactic used by cavalry players to give the infantry fighter minimum chance to hit). It can also be used with a shield; thus you have some protection against ranged attacks. It does 32 piercing damage and thus will penetrate the heavy armour of the plated charger effectively. No other melee weapon does such significant piercing damage at such distance. Consider also the Pike, its an extremely long weapon that is the ultimate cavalry stopper. It may not kill the cavalry outright, but no weapon should unless the cavalry player rides into it without guard up.

As for characters not built to be defensible against cavalry; it is a poor argument to be surpised when your two handed sword is not reliable weapon against a heavy horse galloping at you at full speed. Or when your bow doesn't little damage to the horse. Good armour would defeat arrows and histrically, a longbow was only effective against mail at about 20m. With a pike, or long awlpike, you would deter that cavalry and defeat it if it was stupid enough to repeatedly attack you. it is an equally poor argument to claim cavalry is overpowered when being attacked by multiple horseman. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter if your fighting cavalry or infantry: if you're being hit by multiple enemies you are at a disadvantage (and rightly so). As such, there is no Systematic problem, only a Behavioural one. Wrong weapon, wrong place, wrong expectations.

Other Misperceptions

Poor situation awareness is a common Behavioural reason why cavalry is perceived as overpowered. Consider this: for every cavalry player in CRPG there are usually more capable pike users. That means the cavalry cannot simply ride you over; a common perception by many is that a player on a plated charger (like TheFinn) rides over the enemy team because his horse is impregable. This is nonsense, more often than not the enemy horseman rides over a team because half of them are staring at a wall, leeching, mistime their pike attacks, do not have pikes ready, or expecting that their simple spear will stop the armoured horse. All it takes is one pike out of the entire team to stop a cavalry player. Note also, that a spear will stop an unarmoured horse. Poor situation awareness and team incompetance does not make cavalry overpowered.

Infantry also have mobility that a cavalryman doesn't have in that cavalry is terrain dependent. It is a poor observation to say cavalry is overpowered when standing in the open being flanked by horsemen. You will notice decent players stay near walls, jumping out the way of a charge, evading attacks at the last moment, and detering the cavalry with ready stab attack. Considering that a good archer can do massive damage by headshotting a charging horse, cavalry are actually very limited in what they can do if not armoured. The armoured horses themselves can be stopped a weapon like the awlpike.

Horse Archery

Mechanically, for a horse archer to be a more powerful shot they must invest in Power Draw and thus Strength. For a horse archer to invest in horse archery skills like riding and horse archery, they must invest in Agility. This mitigates the nightmare scenario of a plated charger mounted horse archer. Horse archers are also unable to use a shield when shooting. Once again, I believe there is nothing Systematically wrong with horse archers, but Behaviourally players are frustrated by horse archers but instead of commiting ranged attacks all at once towards the horseman or horse, they get seperated, singled out, shot and killed. No horse archer is impregable to arrows. They cannot wear heavy armour and they cannot equip a shield.

The Onyl Real Problem With Cavalry

In my opinion, the forcefield shield effect on cavalry is the only real overpowered matter on cavalry. The shield is too maneuverable and too effective on horseback with high shield skill. Fixing this is a matter of balance, but all the other situations describe above relate mainly to examples not involving a shield. Sometimes, a pikeman will end up hitting the shield instead of the horse despite aiming for the horse. In the wider dynamics of the game, this is not a major problem as multiple pikemen can and should be employed anyway, as described below.

The Real Problem Is Teamwork

The ultimate contributing factor to the effectiveness of cavalry is the way people play. Cavalry is effectively when ranks are broken, enemies are in disarray, and self-interest is greater than teamwork. Consider that most CRPG players do not use pikes effectively to protect their team or have an expectation that their messy barbarian horde team should be cavalry proof when it exactly those types of rag tag formations cavalry is made to destroy.

In practice, a good team will be able to deter cavalry from their team using pikes, good use of terrain, and having a stake in your teammates surivival rather than your individual kills. There is no decent cavalry player stupid enough to charge into a bristle of pikes. With the addition of friendly horse bumping in the latest patch; cavalry are further limited in who they can attack when looking for openings.

If teams got in the habit of using a mixture of pikes and other weapons when moving across open terrain and stay tight enough to protect each other but not so tight such that weapons start bouncing off people, then it makes it very difficult for cavalry to attack. If once the infantry enters combat and simply 'forgets' about the enemy cavalry: do not be suprised when you get a lance up your arse.

Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Seawied on January 06, 2011, 03:04:01 am
 :rolleyes:

All I gotta say is try using a pike to kill a heavy cataphract horse by yourself.

This is coming from a former cavalry player.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: AngryScotsman on January 06, 2011, 03:07:51 am
All I have to say to that is ride anything at full gallop into a pike and it will rear. With the correct technique, timing and WPF of course. This is coming from a cavalry player who uses pikes when on foot.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Seawied on January 06, 2011, 03:09:02 am
Oh thats right! It will REAR! /sarcasm

Aint gonna die from a single pikeman  though.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Visus on January 06, 2011, 03:13:29 am
The reason why it is op is because the plated charger and other warhorses will take multiple pikes to the face at full gallop before they can be killed. You brought realism into an argument about a game to prove a point before. So...how is that real?
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Beans on January 06, 2011, 03:14:32 am
As a cav player the only way heavy cav dies is when you get lazy/stupid.  If you pay full attention there is no way for other players to aggressively attack and kill you, outside of horse archers.  The poor dudes on foot have to rely on the cav to make a mistake, like ride into a pike, toot around in the open and get pelted by archers, or try and horse bump through a group of infantry too dense. 

However on the reverse side if the cav makes a mistake it usually won't immediately lead to their death.  If you are a footman, just a 2 second mistake can cause you to die from cav.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: AngryScotsman on January 06, 2011, 03:18:15 am
It will if it repeatedly rides into you. It does do significant damage due to the horse riding into your pike more than you stabbing the horse. The same happens when an infantry player walks into a pike. Also, you cannot argue a pike should kill a horse riding into it in a single stroke if its that heavily armoured.

Pikes are a formation weapon: always have and always will be. The answer to your problem is therefore more pikes and teamwork. If your arguing for realism (which by the way I am a fan of in games) then a pike should not be as manveurable, players should not be able to pull them out their bottomless pockets, and they should do the same type of damage a couched lance does, proportionate to the velocity of the charging horse.

In other words, a player could sit in a ready stance with a pike to receive a charge.

If your not arguing for realism, then theres no reason to believe a single pike should take down a plated charger. You are not superman.

Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Visus on January 06, 2011, 03:22:55 am
It will if it repeatedly rides into you. It does do significant damage due to the horse riding into your pike more than you stabbing the horse. The same happens when an infantry player walks into a pike. Also, you cannot argue a pike should kill a horse riding into it in a single stroke if its that heavily armoured.

Pikes are a formation weapon: always have and always will be. The answer to your problem is therefore more pikes and teamwork. If your arguing for realism (which by the way I am a fan of in games) then a pike should not be as manveurable, players should not be able to pull them out their bottomless pockets, and they should do the same type of damage a couched lance does, proportionate to the velocity of the charging horse.

In other words, a player could sit in a ready stance with a pike to receive a charge.

If your not arguing for realism, then theres no reason to believe a single pike should take down a plated charger. You are not superman.
No, but no actual horse can survive running into a pole tipped with pointy iron to the face or chest multiple times, say...2 or 3. In real life, most likely no horse would live through one. Then again, no horse would be decked out in as much plate as that behemoth is. So I am fine with cav having multiple chances to be piked, but that should be 2...or 3 times at most. Not the 4 or 5 a plated charger can survive. It truly is a War Elephant.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Vaxican on January 06, 2011, 03:28:55 am
A horse running 30-40mph getting stopped by a pike in the chest WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PRANCE AWAY.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Seawied on January 06, 2011, 03:31:19 am
Lets analyze your latest rebuttal


It will if it repeatedly rides into you.
"It will if the rider is an idiot and makes the same mistake multiple times." Translation: only if the rider is an idiot.
It does do significant damage due to the horse riding into your pike more than you stabbing the horse. The same happens when an infantry player walks into a pike.
Except this infantryman walking into a pike has 4 times the starting life and the equivalent of black plate+ plated gloves. Did I mention he doesn't get the wpf of black armor either?
Also, you cannot argue a pike should kill a horse riding into it in a single stroke if its that heavily armoured.
Sure you can! Are you saying that in armor, a horse can't break a leg? Or that you can't stab a horse in the eye, gouging out its brain? Or that you can't attack the unarmored part of a horse? Plenty of ways a horse can die in armor.

Pikes are a formation weapon: always have and always will be. The answer to your problem is therefore more pikes and teamwork.
Translation: it should take multiple people to kill a single person on a horse. By this definition, having one person be worth 5 equally skilled players is balanced. If thats the case, I want my polearm of gold balance for my infantry character (http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,146935.0.html)

If your arguing for realism (which by the way I am a fan of in games) then a pike should not be as manveurable, players should not be able to pull them out their bottomless pockets, and they should do the same type of damage a couched lance does, proportionate to the velocity of the charging horse.

... and if you're arguing realism, then you should have to sit-out 1/3rd of all battles to nurse your nasty case of dysentery brought on by the life of a soldier. Realism arguments have no place in c-rpg. We tossed that out with the implementation of the boulder-on-a-stick (aka "long maul.")

In other words, a player could sit in a ready stance with a pike to receive a charge.
I can't hear you over the sound of you fapping to your horse.

If your not arguing for realism, then theres no reason to believe a single pike should take down a plated charger. You are not superman.
Same can be said to your heavy-cav build you are so infatuated with
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Visus on January 06, 2011, 03:33:08 am
A horse running 30-40mph getting stopped by a pike in the chest WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PRANCE AWAY.
+1
AngryScotsman your argument is invalid and irrational. GG Sir. WP.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: AngryScotsman on January 06, 2011, 03:33:19 am
No, but no actual horse can survive running into a pole tipped with pointy iron to the face or chest multiple times, say...2 or 3. In real life, most likely no horse would live through one. Then again, no horse would be decked out in as much plate as that behemoth is. So I am fine with cav having multiple chances to be piked, but that should be 2...or 3 times at most. Not the 4 or 5 a plated charger can survive. It truly is a War Elephant.

As I said, if your argung for realism, then the pikes should be severely reduced in mobility to be effective, and not as easy to pull out of thin air. The pikeman should then be able to 'couch' the pike (i.e. hold it towards the charging horse) to let the cavalry charging the pike to kill itself upon it. I would not be against such a mechanic. But if your talking game balance, then you cannot argue your single pike (cheap weapon) should kill the horse outright. Unlike in reality, cavalry players have to be mindful any infantry player could suddenly pull out a pike: if the cavalry player is using a light horse, then the threat is even bigger. It's not the cakewalk players think it is.

Since your arguing realism: I encourage you to watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsSS5D7GCCM particularly the part about Scots pike drill. Observe the size of the 'pikes' there (more like stakes). Like I said, you cannot argue, game balance considered, that your cheap pike should outright kill the horse, unless you made it realistic all round with the pike.

And we are only talking about pikes here: the long awlpike does 32 pierce and I assure you, a plated charger riding into that won't survive many hits from that.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: AngryScotsman on January 06, 2011, 03:35:00 am
+1
AngryScotsman your argument is invalid and irrational. GG Sir. WP.

Once again, citing realism to argue a game balance issue is itself irrational. If you want realism, I'd suggest you consider what I said about proper pike drill and not being able to pull a pike out your pocket, or couching the pike so it does the same damage as couched lance would if the horse rode into it.

 No doubt, some of you aren't reading fully what I'm writing. I've made my point for now, and thus will leave it at that.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Vaxican on January 06, 2011, 03:40:41 am
Horses in the games current state are overpowered, the only counter to them is  to rely on the user to make a mistake or wait for him to get arrowed down. This isn't from a standpoint of realism but from a standpoint of playstyle balance. Currently, whichever team has more cavalry will usually win. Realistic? perhaps. Enjoyable for anyone other than the people using the mounts? No. I even hate friendly mounts because they constantly friendly bump/tk me. Mounts kill my crpg experience.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Visus on January 06, 2011, 03:44:47 am
Once again, citing realism to argue a game balance issue is itself irrational. If you want realism, I'd suggest you consider what I said about proper pike drill and not being able to pull a pike out your pocket, or couching the pike so it does the same damage as couched lance would if the horse rode into it.

 No doubt, some of you aren't reading fully what I'm writing. I've made my point for now, and thus will leave it at that.
No no no. You don't fully understand what you are saying. You want plated chargers running around cRPG taking 5 pikes or so before they can finally be killed? Even with a "proper pike drill" do you actually expect the idiots in this mod to perform a basic maneuver?
That is irrational. And couching pikes would never be used because they would be outlengthed by any bright and agile horseman with a lance. There shouldn't be tanks on the cRPG battlefield but there are. Everyone knows it too...except you.
Actually. I would be fine with plated chargers tanking it up like a Panzer IV...as long as I can bring my 300p Spartan Laser with me. 
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: AngryScotsman on January 06, 2011, 03:49:27 am
One more thing; in response to the 'rebuttals' and someone trying to be a smart arse.


"It will if the rider is an idiot and makes the same mistake multiple times." Translation: only if the rider is an idiot.

Hasty Generalisation Fallacy

Except this infantryman walking into a pike has 4 times the starting life and the equivalent of black plate+ plated gloves. Did I mention he doesn't get the wpf of black armor either?

Speak English.

Sure you can! Are you saying that in armor, a horse can't break a leg? Or that you can't stab a horse in the eye, gouging out its brain? Or that you can't attack the unarmored part of a horse? Plenty of ways a horse can die in armor.

Are you arguing realism or gameplay? Inconsistent argument.

Translation: it should take multiple people to kill a single person on a horse. By this definition, having one person be worth 5 equally skilled players is balanced.

This is a pathetic generalised complaint about cavalry itself with any consideration of mechanics.

. and if you're arguing realism, then you should have to sit-out 1/3rd of all battles to nurse your nasty case of dysentery brought on by the life of a soldier. Realism arguments have no place in c-rpg. We tossed that out with the implementation of the boulder-on-a-stick (aka "long maul.")

Non sequitur.

I can't hear you over the sound of you fapping to your horse.

Ad hominem.

Same can be said to your heavy-cav build you are so infatuated with

Ad hominem.

And clearly, since your an uneducated scumbag, here's the link about logical fallacies for you to read up on. http://www.logicalfallacies.info/

Next idiot who thinks he's smarter than me please.


Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Rhuell on January 06, 2011, 03:51:39 am
lol looks like someone just took his first year logic class :P
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: AngryScotsman on January 06, 2011, 03:51:49 am
No no no. You don't fully understand what you are saying. You want plated chargers running around cRPG taking 5 pikes or so before they can finally be killed? Even with a "proper pike drill" do you actually expect the idiots in this mod to perform a basic maneuver?
That is irrational. And couching pikes would never be used because they would be outlengthed by any bright and agile horseman with a lance. There shouldn't be tanks on the cRPG battlefield but there are. Everyone knows it too...except you.
Actually. I would be fine with plated chargers tanking it up like a Panzer IV...as long as I can bring my 300p Spartan Laser with me.

Final reply before I go sleep.

Hence my distinction of System and Behaviour Visus. Just because people are crap doesn't make it overpowered innately. The incompetance of people is irrelevant to the innate balance of cavalry. Read the first post before jumping in ffs.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Visus on January 06, 2011, 04:01:53 am
Final reply before I go sleep.

Hence my distinction of System and Behaviour Visus. Just because people are crap doesn't make it overpowered innately. The incompetance of people is irrelevant to the innate balance of cavalry. Read the first post before jumping in ffs.
I did read it. And you are quite incorrect. It shouldn't be a nightmare to kill a horse. It shouldn't take an entire team to kill a horse. The horse shouldn't play the game for someone (see TheFinn). Horses like this shouldn't be part of the game. It is basic common sense.
Now, I bet that you have one of these horses yourself. And I would also say that you have never been on the ground with a pike, trying to dodge the LoC while piking a tank rolling into you. Thus, you should be in no position to describe if one side or the other is balanced as the majority of the population does not have heavy horses, and the majority of the population says they are overpowered. You are simply wrong. Maybe if you would stop acting so...hmmmm. Haughty? Intellectual? Omnipotent? Your word isn't law, nor is it innately right. Get off your high horse (see what I did there?  :D), stop trying to grow your mental e-peen by throwing out Latin words and historical tactics on the internet, and think about it from another point of view.
Honestly, I almost feel trolled here. This can't be for real.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Joxer on January 06, 2011, 04:06:37 am
As a pikeman I have to give my input on this. Before respec I had 6ps, +220 polearm, 18str and tempered pike. Back then I could take out a plated charger if I could get one perfect hit from the front and 2-3 after it stopped. It was very rare. Now with the respec it's even more unlikely. A dedicated pikeman has to go for high athletics to use the weapon effectively. This means now that you cannot invest to strenght and therefore less PS. Which means more hits to take out a plated charger. Something like 5-7 hits. A pikeman is not a perfect anti-heavy horse counter anymore. A foot soldier who has high PS and polearm and who carries a pike in case is the best option now.
Also chadz: Why didn't you fix the shields on horseback?  :twisted: Still get tons of perfect hits that end up on the riders shield right through the face of the horse :(
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Eluem on January 06, 2011, 04:24:02 am
Is the OP of this thread a troll???

They're going around stating all these logical fallacies in people arguments: Ad hominem, non sequitur, ect..

meanwhile their arguments are plagued by the same fallacies.

"If your not arguing for realism, then theres no reason to believe a single pike should take down a plated charger. You are not superman."

Not arguing realism, ends with arguing realism.....

Cavalry aren't balanced. They don't require skill to play and they are incredibly effective. Horse bump is far too damaging and allows you to run over far to many units (including incredibly heavily armored units).. even with the lighter horses.


The cavalry need some nerf to the charge damage and the number of people they can charge through.

The plated charger needs a nerf to its armor and health.
I saw a plated charge with NINE fucking axes in it. That should easily be enough to kill a horse.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Beans on January 06, 2011, 04:24:35 am
And clearly, since your an uneducated scumbag, here's the link about logical fallacies for you to read up on. http://www.logicalfallacies.info/

Next idiot who thinks he's smarter than me please.

Pro move, call people out for name calling then finish your own post with name calling.



Armored war horses are extremely powerful, and they should be to an extent. That's why the upkeep system is designed to only give access to these expensive creatures to those owning cities.  That's fine, those should remain the lordly death machines they currently are.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Seawied on January 06, 2011, 04:40:27 am
One more thing; in response to the 'rebuttals' and someone trying to be a smart arse.
Hasty Generalisation Fallacy
Hey hey hey now. I'm not trying to be a smart ass, I am being a smart ass  :lol:

That said, its not a hasty generalization to say that if you repeatedly try to go for a guy with a pike equipped, then you're being an idiot. Go for a different target, and then pick off that guy later when he is distracted.

Quote
"Except this infantryman walking into a pike has 4 times the starting life and the equivalent of black plate+ plated gloves. Did I mention he doesn't get the wpf of black armor either?"

Speak English.
Heavy Cataphract:
70 Armor
150 life

Base life of a player in c-rpg: 35
Black armor: 60 body
Plated gloves: 10 armor
Total: 70 armor
WPF penalty for both
-33.4 (based on previous patch. chadz mentioned a more serious penalty in the current patch, but has not elaborated yet.)

Quote
"Sure you can! Are you saying that in armor, a horse can't break a leg? Or that you can't stab a horse in the eye, gouging out its brain? Or that you can't attack the unarmored part of a horse? Plenty of ways a horse can die in armor."

Are you arguing realism or gameplay? Inconsistent argument.
No, I'm saying that your stated logic of using realism as a basis that horses should be near invincible is flawed. My overall argument is that the current system is neither realistic nor balanced and should be changed.

Quote
"Translation: it should take multiple people to kill a single person on a horse. By this definition, having one person be worth 5 equally skilled players is balanced."

This is a pathetic generalised complaint about cavalry itself with any consideration of mechanics.
No, its not. If it takes 5 players to take out 1 player with a specific item, then that item is clearly imbalanced. On top of that, a player on horseback in c-rpg has no drawbacks. This is why we designed cavalry in native multiplayer to have worse stats and worse items than their infantry counterparts.

Quote
". and if you're arguing realism, then you should have to sit-out 1/3rd of all battles to nurse your nasty case of dysentery brought on by the life of a soldier. Realism arguments have no place in c-rpg. We tossed that out with the implementation of the boulder-on-a-stick (aka "long maul.")"

Non sequitur.
Not at all. C-RPG is not based on realism. Several instances in your post you mention realism, but realism is non sequitur
Quote
"Same can be said to your heavy-cav build you are so infatuated with"

Ad hominem.
Not at all. You claim that players on foot think that they should be superman and unstoppable, your heavy cavalary build which you are defending too much is exactly that. Its strong in all aspects of the game and weak in next to none.
Quote
And clearly, since your an uneducated scumbag, here's the link about logical fallacies for you to read up on.

Next idiot who thinks he's smarter than me please.
Hahahahah, using a fallacy and then trying to brag about your knowledge of logic. Irony much? What a fucking idiot.


Another cocky college freshman who thinks hes a lot smarter than he actually is.

Smacking down teenagers is so fun  :lol:
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Eluem on January 06, 2011, 08:47:57 am
[.... awesome arguements...]

Another cocky college freshman who thinks hes a lot smarter than he actually is.

Smacking down teenagers is so fun  :lol:


Very well put together. Idk if they're a cocky college freshman or just a troll though.

Though the original post was well put together there are clearly flaws. The plated charger is obviously over powered..

The new upkeep system will hopefully force all of the super gear into the hands of the few that own land. This is awesome. This will create a more realistic and diverse setting. It's what the game was meant to be, there will only be a few super troops running around in the game.... eventually :P

However, I think the plated charger and other warhorses are a bit TOO overpowered... even though they should be powerful enough impose great influence on the battle field..

plated chargers shouldn't be able to take 6+ stabs to the head... or 6 throwing axes + melee hits. It's insane... if they're gona do that.. they need to be super super expensive.. any only a very very few should be able to afford them lol..... people running around on these things with shields bumping everyone to death is retarded...
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: bruce on January 06, 2011, 10:17:12 am
The type of horse which survives getting speared in the chest/face at speed should be the type of horse which is not feasible to upkeep (or more accurately, should not be feasible to upkeep), but sadly upkeep only hits if you lose, which is the core problem; winning team gets to play the old crpg with plated chargers, full plate, etc, losing team plays the new with lower end equipment.

We all know armoured horses are OP to hell and back.

I'm waiting for a few days though to see if upkeep does work at reducing their numbers or not.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Thomek on January 06, 2011, 10:44:44 am
to OP

You clearly have some issues resembling some kind of inferiority complex. (Why would you try to convince us you are smart otherwise? We read your words and judge you by them..)

Anyway back  to topic, you have some valid points in theory. :-)

There is 2 major problems though.

1.
cRPG players will never learn to operate effectively as an organized force.
1. They don't know how and why, and can't easily communicate while fighting.
2. They simply don't care, they just want some quick action
3. They are kids
4. They are stone
etc etc..

Common Sense tells me this, as well as practical experience in trying to command a group of players to do something together. It is very rare that they listen. Even to Phaz or me, high profiled players, with a name and command-experience. They only follow orders in about 30% of the cases, and even then there are about 30% of players that don't follow orders/try to work together.

2.
In cRPG because of balance issues, no single playstyle/class should be OP in the sense that the class in General, is more valuable, player to player, than any other. It is also important because if one playstyle became too dominant, we would have a shift in the playerbase towards that direction. (As seen multiple times with archery. And hence the Archer nerfs, too many archers made cRPG more like CS.) This is also the reason why realism can be thrown out the window.. Horsemen are powerful by Idea. They are faster than everyone else, so they can choose their battles freely. They also have a handy 1hit-1kill ability, they can be within and out of a single infantrys range in a split second. Some classes have almost no defense, i.ex a shielder with xbow. After firing 1 bolt he's basically dead, because he has no inventory space for a spear. The horseman can just ride him down until hes dead after that, or hit his shield until it breaks, then couchlance him etc.. Or simply bump-slash him.

The worst ability and what horsemen get's most kills by is however Ninjaing people in the back while they are busy doing something else. They can simply try to hit someone hit or miss, ride away, find a new unaware target, ride away, find a new unaware target etc. Horsemen die when they run out of unaware targets.. And the bump-slash is of course a joke. No other mechanic let's you get a free slash at someone to the head, except kicking which is a very hard and risky maneuver.

But if you want to talk realism:

A. Horses in cRPG are driven like cars. Super accurate controls, never riding the wrong way. Or acting strange after getting x amounts of arrows etc.
B. When the horse gets stopped, rides into a wall full speed, reared or whatever, the rider should fall off and take serious damage. My friends brother was hospitalized a month ago after falling off a horse. Hell superman went lame after a horse fall..

Those are just examples of many many factors.

Most alarming with your post is the lack of Experience and Common Sense though. You are like the philosophers in ancient greece discussing how many teeth a cat has, in stead of taking a look..

Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: AngryScotsman on January 06, 2011, 03:14:24 pm
Thomek (ignoring your pathetic slurs):

1. Common sense tells me the exact same. That is besides the point. Cavalry is not overpowered just because the average player is incompetant. We don't work towards the most common denominator in this world, else we'd still be sitting in fucking caves using sticks and stones to light fires. There are ways you can improve the game to make teamwork a better option without reducing difficulty for the common ape.

2. No inventory space my arse. You accuse me of lacking common sense yet your arguing that a crossbowman who didn't bring a polearm should not be mowed down by cavalry. He's got four slots. He could have brought one. Not every 'class' should be able to defend against cavalry. It the players fault for making the class choice and you must therefore suffer the consequences; everything has a weakness.

You also overstate the cavalry damage. They do not have a 'handy 1 hit 1 kill ability'. If someone isn't wearing armour, gets caught off guard, is seperated from his team, and gets nailed because of it, he deserves to die.

And this long winded example you talk about a horseman being able to ride down an enemy and couch him is completely out of context. Where is the players team? Why was he caught by himself in the open so that he can be couched? Not to mention it takes time on the cavalry players part.

Your complaint about cavalry making kills by backstabbing is also out of context. Why is that player being backstabbed? Because he wasn't working with his team, or got seperated, or his team weren't watching him. You're arguing that ground soldiers are the only privileged class to be allowed to backstab.

And to be honest, all this talk is of comparing infantry against cavalry is utter bollocks anyway: completely out of context. No one ever argued cavalry should be evenly matched to infantry. The proper counter to cavalry is cavalry; and its not like players don't have cavalry on their team as well. Try staying with your team more often instead of soloing and you might not get run over by cavalry, Thomek.

One final thing; there are too many muppets in this thread making criticisms against heavy cavalry but dressing it up as a general argument against all cavalry in general. There's a difference. Realise it.

Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: The_Bloody_Nine on January 06, 2011, 03:36:47 pm
kudos to all people taking their time to reply to OP's arguments!

@angry, especially last post:

Only 2 things:1. You are conseqently mixing up realism and game balancing things. 2. You completely ignore that Thomek stated in his post that in his Opinion "cRPG players will never learn to operate effectively as an organized force". If this is true can be discussed, but you just ignore things and thus your argumentations are ... not useful at least.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Thomek on January 06, 2011, 04:14:44 pm
"No one ever argued cavalry should be evenly matched to infantry"

That's the thing. They should. In this mod, for balance.
It should be just as hard to do well as a cavalry player as an infantry player. Currently it's not like that.

I'd also reason that the average cavalry player is as incompetent as the average infantry player, but an incompetent cav will do much better.

"You also overstate the cavalry damage. They do not have a 'handy 1 hit 1 kill ability'"
Well, they do, in 5 different variations, 1 which is bump damage. They can get away from all of them without the victim having any chance to strike back. To an unaware player they are practically riskless attacks.

1. Couched lance at high speed can kill armored targets. Unblockable except by shields.
2. Normal lance damage at high speed at a lightly armored target
3. Bump + headstrike, takes out most light armored guys.
4. High speed pass with crush through morning star.
5. Just a normal bump, often resulting in a kill, or serious damage. Very often letting a teammate strike riskless at the victim.

And talk about awareness...  :rolleyes:

No one can track 4-5 cav circling around you + infantry + archers in their heads. It's impossible. The distance in time from far to close is also very short for cav. So they are easy to ignore or loose track of..

I do understand that people might seem blatantly unaware when you snipe them off with your lance, but believe me, people often have other things to worry about like the xbow or archer aiming at them, the Ninja that just disappeared around the corner, or the lolhammer 2 seconds away. (but yes people are generally too unaware, I know all about that as it's my main exploit.. ) But we are not going to change that fact.

I dunno, your perspective on the game seems rather screwed. Like you think you are some kind of king on a horse, having a birthright to kill everyone with it. Your scotsman should get down on the ground and try to play as a pikeman. Not only cav has the right to rank on top of the scorecharts.

Oh and btw:

You are the only muppet I saw here.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Joker86 on January 06, 2011, 05:45:58 pm
A forewarning to those of you apes who are incapable of rational thinking, have the attention span of the arse end of a camel or have nothing useful to add to this world: this post requires you to follow my reasoning and see why I think cavalry isn't overpowered.

System vs. Behaviour

Firstly, I will define this model I will use to describe this perceived problem.

"System" can be defined as the mechanical aspects of CRPG relating to cavalry; such as cavalry weapons, anti-cavalry weaponry, horse statistics, etc.
"Behaviour" can be defined as the habits, tactics, methods of coping with or defeating cavalry players use against them, etc.

Secondly, there is an important practical distinction between something be overpowered because of  the mechanics of the system and something being 'overpowered' due to the (bad) behaviour of people. I will paraphrase a conclusion relating to health and safety law that I think is a useful paradigm in this case. 'Systems don't make mistakes, people do'.

So additional hitpoints (protected by armour), additional speed, additional bump damage and additional hit speed are balanced by gameplaymechanics by spending 4 or 5 skill points? And only behaviour breaks this balance? Really?


Thus, in order to make this argument, I will have to discuss why I think the System of cavalry in CRPG is innately balanced.

Countering Cavalry

I'll address plated chargers mainly: if the argument applies to them, it applies to other warhorses.

Players don't like the durability of the plated charger. Nor do they like its ability to take chunks out of a players health bar by riding into them. These are poor arguments against the plate charger because of reasons (mainly poor tactics) I will describe further below when I discuss Behaviour. But for now, I will make an observation. A great many players who complain about the plated charger attempt to defeat it using the wrong type of weapon. These same players may also fail to acknowledge that their builds have to have weaknesses. In the end of the day, if one player invests as a cavalry character, and you invest as a foot based character, you would be an idiot to not have acknowledged the threat against you from the cavalry. To that end, the polearms weapon set is a versatile weapon tree that includes many weapons that, if you had been built to counter cavalry properly, you would have no problem with.

The Only Proper Cavalry Counter (As In Reality) Is A Pike

So everyone without horse is supposed to run around with a pike? You also miss one important point: a pike is only a (not really convincing) PROTECTION against cavalry, it's no counter, as a counter would get cavalry killed.

Also you can't suppose all infantry players want to skill into polearm. What about people who want to use 2hd or 1hd+shield?

Consider the Long Awlpike. It's a long weapon that can stop a horse attacking you at a 45 degree angle (a tactic used by cavalry players to give the infantry fighter minimum chance to hit). It can also be used with a shield; thus you have some protection against ranged attacks. It does 32 piercing damage and thus will penetrate the heavy armour of the plated charger effectively. No other melee weapon does such significant piercing damage at such distance. Consider also the Pike, its an extremely long weapon that is the ultimate cavalry stopper. It may not kill the cavalry outright, but no weapon should unless the cavalry player rides into it without guard up.

Wrong. Horse gives incredible additional benefits, which should be made up by severe weaknesses. Like "Horse stopped by pike = dead".


As for characters not built to be defensible against cavalry; it is a poor argument to be surpised when your two handed sword is not reliable weapon against a heavy horse galloping at you at full speed. Or when your bow doesn't little damage to the horse. Good armour would defeat arrows and histrically, a longbow was only effective against mail at about 20m. With a pike, or long awlpike, you would deter that cavalry and defeat it if it was stupid enough to repeatedly attack you. it is an equally poor argument to claim cavalry is overpowered when being attacked by multiple horseman. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter if your fighting cavalry or infantry: if you're being hit by multiple enemies you are at a disadvantage (and rightly so). As such, there is no Systematic problem, only a Behavioural one. Wrong weapon, wrong place, wrong expectations.

So infantry has to skill accordingly to the cavalry threat, end eventually accept hitbacks concerning the euqipment they want to use. (E.g. crossbow and shield+axe... where is there room for a pike?), but where are the hitbacks cavalry has to take against other classes? There are no, you can use whatever you want, in most cases a shield and a lance is enough.

Other Misperceptions

Poor situation awareness is a common Behavioural reason why cavalry is perceived as overpowered. Consider this: for every cavalry player in CRPG there are usually more capable pike users. That means the cavalry cannot simply ride you over; a common perception by many is that a player on a plated charger (like TheFinn) rides over the enemy team because his horse is impregable. This is nonsense, more often than not the enemy horseman rides over a team because half of them are staring at a wall, leeching, mistime their pike attacks, do not have pikes ready, or expecting that their simple spear will stop the armoured horse. All it takes is one pike out of the entire team to stop a cavalry player. Note also, that a spear will stop an unarmoured horse. Poor situation awareness and team incompetance does not make cavalry overpowered.

This is nonsense. You don't have to be aware even of archers as much as of cavalry. Which other class forces you to constantly turn around that fast that you could start to feel sick?

Infantry also have mobility that a cavalryman doesn't have in that cavalry is terrain dependent. It is a poor observation to say cavalry is overpowered when standing in the open being flanked by horsemen. You will notice decent players stay near walls, jumping out the way of a charge, evading attacks at the last moment, and detering the cavalry with ready stab attack. Considering that a good archer can do massive damage by headshotting a charging horse, cavalry are actually very limited in what they can do if not armoured. The armoured horses themselves can be stopped a weapon like the awlpike.

Stopped, not killed. And the whole mobility thing is bullshit. In worst case a cavalryman can dismount and voila! You've got an infantryman! Cavalry = infantry + more awesome.

Horse Archery

Mechanically, for a horse archer to be a more powerful shot they must invest in Power Draw and thus Strength. For a horse archer to invest in horse archery skills like riding and horse archery, they must invest in Agility. This mitigates the nightmare scenario of a plated charger mounted horse archer. Horse archers are also unable to use a shield when shooting. Once again, I believe there is nothing Systematically wrong with horse archers, but Behaviourally players are frustrated by horse archers but instead of commiting ranged attacks all at once towards the horseman or horse, they get seperated, singled out, shot and killed. No horse archer is impregable to arrows. They cannot wear heavy armour and they cannot equip a shield.

And what do you do if you have no ranged weapon? Then you have the choice of either being trampled or being shot and trampled. I don't know any other class being able to take out other players with 0% of own risk.

The Onyl Real Problem With Cavalry

In my opinion, the forcefield shield effect on cavalry is the only real overpowered matter on cavalry. The shield is too maneuverable and too effective on horseback with high shield skill. Fixing this is a matter of balance, but all the other situations describe above relate mainly to examples not involving a shield. Sometimes, a pikeman will end up hitting the shield instead of the horse despite aiming for the horse. In the wider dynamics of the game, this is not a major problem as multiple pikemen can and should be employed anyway, as described below.

The Real Problem Is Teamwork

The ultimate contributing factor to the effectiveness of cavalry is the way people play. Cavalry is effectively when ranks are broken, enemies are in disarray, and self-interest is greater than teamwork. Consider that most CRPG players do not use pikes effectively to protect their team or have an expectation that their messy barbarian horde team should be cavalry proof when it exactly those types of rag tag formations cavalry is made to destroy.

In practice, a good team will be able to deter cavalry from their team using pikes, good use of terrain, and having a stake in your teammates surivival rather than your individual kills. There is no decent cavalry player stupid enough to charge into a bristle of pikes. With the addition of friendly horse bumping in the latest patch; cavalry are further limited in who they can attack when looking for openings.

So all other players have to rely on teamwork. So does caval...? Ah, no! No need for cavalryplayers to care for any tactics.  :rolleyes:

If teams got in the habit of using a mixture of pikes and other weapons when moving across open terrain and stay tight enough to protect each other but not so tight such that weapons start bouncing off people, then it makes it very difficult for cavalry to attack. If once the infantry enters combat and simply 'forgets' about the enemy cavalry: do not be suprised when you get a lance up your arse.

Again: what has cavalry to be aware of? Pikes? OMG this is really hard!  :rolleyes:

And there is absolutely no chance in being aware of cav while fighting in meele. The problem is: you can turn around only each few seconds, 5-10 maybe, but cavalry needs 2 sec- to reach you and another 2 to ride away again.


I am cavalry player myself. Cavalry is easymode, all horses above courser need 25-50% less hitpoints and armour, and 0 bump damage at all.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Delro on January 06, 2011, 08:00:35 pm
Mounts kill my crpg experience.

Would you prefer a game called "Blade & Blade?"
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Darth_Tard on January 06, 2011, 08:18:31 pm
People need to stop complaining about OP cav. In my five characters, I have never used a horse, and have never had problems with them. I agree with AngryScotsman in that to kill horses, you need to invest in anti-cav abilities. I have found throwing to be an ample threat to cav, both armored and unarmored. Just because your character's build is weak to cav, doesn't mean that you need to complain about it being OP. My character's weakness is against spammers, due to my incredibly low agility. Balance and weaknesses are something that comes with the game.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Darth_Tard on January 06, 2011, 08:31:13 pm
Now that I said my piece, I'm gonna go ahead and say that AngryScotsman needs to take his medicine. Chill out and try to socialize with us dude. LULZ!!!!
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Memento_Mori on January 06, 2011, 09:01:50 pm
People need to stop complaining about OP cav. In my five characters, I have never used a horse, and have never had problems with them. I agree with AngryScotsman in that to kill horses, you need to invest in anti-cav abilities. I have found throwing to be an ample threat to cav, both armored and unarmored. Just because your character's build is weak to cav, doesn't mean that you need to complain about it being OP. My character's weakness is against spammers, due to my incredibly low agility. Balance and weaknesses are something that comes with the game.

Exactly what this guy said except I have high agi and low str, low armor, my high agi allows me to use a pike relatively fast for having only 1 WPP but yeah thats how I deal with Cav, I get pwned by archers, xbowmen and throwers... I don't own a shield.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Grey on January 06, 2011, 09:06:45 pm
ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS>PAPER>ROCK>SCISSORS  :twisted:
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Murchad on January 06, 2011, 09:54:09 pm
I am a HA and cav is easymode, now that Horsearchery has been nerfed so much the cav have no natural enemies.

I can pick up any weapon off the ground and easily get a bunch of kills riding my cataphract.
I don't really even need to pick up a weapon acually.

I would like if (heavy) horses died much easier to melee and had about the same resistance to arrows they do now.
Also bump damage should be at least halved. I get lots of bump kills and I hate it... they require no skill
horsearchers against shield players like to bump them over and shoot them while their guard is down, but now the bump does more damage than the shot.

I used to see it as my duty as a horsearcher to shoot down all enemy cavalrymen or their horses. now with the cut damage arrows and the other nerfs i sometimes feel i am shooting a brick wall.

My alternate char is a polearms char. I have been using a pike lately and have been having fun the problem is that cav can take so much damage that after i rear their horse they can just start riding into me and bumpslash me before i can do anything.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Everkistus on January 06, 2011, 10:01:14 pm
I play as cav, 2H (longsword) and thrower.

As cav: It's not as easy as you might think. Sometimes I have to circle around for a long time because there seems to be lots of people using pike these days. I use a Sarranid Horse, and if I ride into a pike it WILL kill the poor thing. The easiest targets are unaware archers who are concentrated on firing. Usually they are at enemy flanks, so I can approach from flank and ride through the crowd, bumping about 4 guys in the way. Never through the whole mass, because then my horse would stop and I would be dead. Two-handed stab is also a killer, if I ride into it I'll be dead. BTW I use an Iron Staff on horseback, so I need to get close before hitting.

Haven't played that much with 2H, seems to be similar. Horsemen should stay away from the stab, with the speedbonus it really hurts. Killed a couple horses with it.

Throwing: This is a real killer for horses. My best moment was when I twoshotted Phazh Cata horse from under him with Jarids. When I play as my cav char, I always stay away from throwers.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Grey on January 06, 2011, 10:14:28 pm
BTW I use an Iron Staff on horseback, so I need to get close before hitting.

You got wpf in Poles, and riding, but DONT use a lance....theres a reason we all got one, its the wtg.

And yeah, pikes and throwers rape your horse, thats because:

(click to show/hide)

and if each class wasnt killed by all the other classes when they are played well, then it wouldnt be a game, it would be shit.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Murchad on January 06, 2011, 10:15:54 pm
Everkistus
I don't think anyone is complaining about the light horses, they have plenty of weaknesses
it is the Panzer IV and Sherman varieties that people are discussing.

Grey
The problem is when the paper covers the rock with a well timed pike thrust but the rock rips right through it and destroys the paper

I may be wrong about it all and the upkeep may balance it out... time will tell but I wouldnt count on it
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Everkistus on January 06, 2011, 10:46:28 pm
I'm very afraid that if horses get nerfed, the same nerf would apply to light horses as well, making them absolute shit.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Joker86 on January 06, 2011, 10:57:47 pm
Just make armoured horses far more expensive. It wouldn't hurt the purchase of a horse itself (as saving some money is easy now), but it WOULD hurt the upkeep.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: PieParadox on January 07, 2011, 01:04:03 am
As a newer player I thought I'd give some input.

The thread starter has truth to his argument, yet, it doesn't exactly mean the power of good cavalry should stay as it is. My following points are based on my experiences with an unarmoured horse. I got about a 3-4 kills per death on average.
I'm about level 20 now, and I ride a Palfrey (before the latest patch, I did too, not because of upkeep). Most of my kills rely on exploiting the enemy. I rely on catching them off guard or while they're vulnerable. For example, I'll come from behind a group of enemy and quickly scout it first, then charge for those I know who wouldn't see me coming (commonsense yea?). Half the time, pikemen we already see me, and I'll evade them and kill the guy next to them. There's a false sense of security of your teammates being around you and so situational awareness is lower, allowing cavalry to plow quickly through.

As  I said, I had a k/d of about 3:1 but its based on rounds and if I exploit correctly. I'll get 9 kills one round but maybe 1 the next.

Someone was saying that it's unfair that some people don't have enough equipment slots to fight cavalry. And that really shouldn't be a problem (but it still is I know). A guy who runs into an open field is a target for cavalry. However, if anything, that target should be armed with a strong polearm. The target should not be there if he doesn't have one. People need to play to their advantages; if the enemy has heavy cavalry, stick to the village/castle/etc., rather than open fields.

Pikes are not the only dangers... Second to me are are javelin throwers... I will attack some enemies only to be dehorsed by 1-2 javelins.

I also bought a pike recently (no WPF, i only have WPF in 1h) for the explicit reason of cavalry. With the new lower skill requirements in riding, more cavalry are bound to start popping up.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Seawied on January 07, 2011, 05:59:23 am
I'm very afraid that if horses get nerfed, the same nerf would apply to light horses as well, making them absolute shit.

A reasonable fear. Show me someone who thinks the light horses are OP and I'll show you a complete noob. I actually think light horses could use small buff.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Mattressi on January 07, 2011, 06:11:25 am
The proper counter to cavalry is cavalry

Ah, that explains the ridiculous rant and subsequent posts. You believe that the game balance is fine when the only counter to something is itself. If this were how the game was meant to work, why shouldn't we all just go cavalry? They clearly have the advantage over ranged players (they quickly ride up to them and kill them) and they clearly have an extreme advantage over anyone engaged in any other activity (in a melee, dodging arrows) because they can ride up quickly and silently behind them and lance them. The only disadvantage to playing cavalry is someone using a pike. Not even a polearms user or any type of class - one specific weapon is regarded as being capable of stopping cavalry.

The problem with this is that cavalry can easily ride past any pikeman - I've yet to ever catch a horseman that realised I was a pikeman and rode the opposite direction. I've yet to successfully surprise a cavalry by pulling out my pike just before they're in range - I either get killed because I waited to long to pull it out and attack or I pull it out with just enough time to attack; which also happens to be enough time for the cav to ride way past me.

How can a pikeman get the jump on cav? They don't have the speed for it, so all they can do is hope that a cav will ride into their pike.

If it's a one vs one situation (somehow), all the cav needs to do is ride slowly at the pikeman so that the thrust doesn't rear up the horse or damage it too greatly and then proceed to thrust/slash at the pikeman. Once the horse has lost a reasonable amount of health, the cav can back off a little, dismount and hey-presto, they're infantry! Pikeman's already had a bit of health taken off, so it's not a terribly difficult fight for a half decently skilled cav (one that can actually block - I've seen some that can't!).

People keep saying that it's a case of rock stating that paper is OP and scissors are fine. The reality is, however, that there is no such system in place. 2H/polearms beat 1H shielders which beat ranged which beat 2H/polearm. Cav beat ranged, 2H/polearm and shielders one on one. In groups, cav can easily swarm a few players (cav have a huge speed advantage, so they can flank the infantry from both sides, that way one is guaranteed to kill him). If the going really gets tough (too many pikes) they can just dismount. The few points they spent on riding aren't a big enough disadvantage to guarantee they'll lose an infantry fight (and their agi/str are usually decently balanced - I've never seen a tank rider who can't wear plate).

As the OP said, he believes cav should counter cav, which clearly shows he doesn't want a rock/paper/scissors type balance either. No idea why he believes that should be the case (it's neither realistic nor balanced), but that's it.

I believe a better balance would be: 2H/polearm beats 1H/cav beats bows/xbow beats 2H/polearm. Bows now have cutting damage, so cav is even more dangerous to them than before, xbows still have pierce but have such a long reload time that they're extremely vulnerable to cav too. So, all that would be need is for cav horses to be given less health - they have armor to stop the arrows and bolts, so the only thing they need lots of health for is fighting infantry (high pierce plus extra damage due to speed takes off much more health than an arrow). It'd be nice if 2H weapons could rear a horse too, but that might be asking too much.

Edit: Also, get rid of the frigging knock-down! It's realistic that a horse charging someone could knock them down, but it's also realistic that someone with an axe or maul could break a horses legs (even as they're being trampled)! Either make horses as vulnerable as they are IRL (even the ones with armor would frequently break legs, not to mention simply not do as the rider wanted because they were injured or scared) or remove knock down. Hell, leave it in for a charging horse if it's an absolute must (as if cav don't have enough advantages over others), but please stop a cav from slowly walking over me and knocking me down. Often I'll finally manage to force a cav into a wall and he'll just turn around, ride the few steps between me and him and then ride straight over the top of me, knocking me down. Sadly, I fear horse bumping might be hard coded :(
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Rimking on January 07, 2011, 12:47:49 pm
Angry_scot is being an ass again?

Surprising.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Joker86 on January 07, 2011, 04:22:00 pm
Why cavalry is overpowered:

Every cavalryman has an additional item any footman doesn't have. This item provides him with speed, which is protection, flexibility and increased speed bonus. It also enables him to knock people over, for which you need a blunt weapon with decent damage otherwise, and those weapons can be blocked, a horse bump can't. In many cases this horsebump also causes some damage.

He is paying this with three things:

- he has to spend a few points in riding skill
- he has to look out to not bump friendlies
- he can be stopped by a pike, though it's in 99% of the cases his own fault, and except to some damage to his horse in most cases nothing will happen, he will just turn around and ride away.

Now let's see if the advantages are made up by the disadvantages. If not: cav is OP.


Cav is OP. Period.  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Darth_Tard on January 07, 2011, 06:09:00 pm
To anyone who thinks cav is OP, get throwing. I lawl at cav, given that I can consistently one-shot unarmored cav, and frequently one-shot armored cav. You pull your arm back to throw, and they get the hell outta the way, or lose their horse. Problem solved  :D
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: huscarl_johnson on January 07, 2011, 06:42:02 pm
if you miss, you're fucked, and if you have to go out of your way to throw at a cav, you're almost certainly going to be in a position where a second one can spear the back of your head. As has been pointed out, all they have to do is not be stupid to rack up kills. You, as the foot guy, needs perfect constant 360 degree awareness, good aim, and the good luck to have an idiot charge you when you're prepared for it. Trample damage added to this mix is moronic.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Memento_Mori on January 07, 2011, 07:21:33 pm
if you miss, you're fucked, and if you have to go out of your way to throw at a cav, you're almost certainly going to be in a position where a second one can spear the back of your head. As has been pointed out, all they have to do is not be stupid to rack up kills. You, as the foot guy, needs perfect constant 360 degree awareness, good aim, and the good luck to have an idiot charge you when you're prepared for it. Trample damage added to this mix is moronic.


are you playing a deathmatch server? where are your team mates? Stick with your team and use team work to over come these things the same in any other team oriented game.

Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Tai Feng on January 07, 2011, 07:32:50 pm

are you playing a deathmatch server? where are your team mates? Stick with your team and use team work to over come these things the same in any other team oriented game.

 Organized cavalry will kill organized infantry, that much is clear. 


These arguments remind me of Native Khergits vs anything else comments. "Oh you just have to be organized as non Khergit, they are not overpowered." Right, so it's balanced because you have to be organized and enemy can act like headless chicken and still can win.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: AgentQ on January 07, 2011, 07:46:16 pm
When I had to maintain additional 10k-30k horse, It suppose to give me a fair advantage. HORSE IS NOT OP, get over with it, learn to teamwork.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Joker86 on January 07, 2011, 07:47:11 pm
I remind on my post at the top of this page.

Even throwing won't balance it out, as you can either shoot his horse or himself. If he didn't have a horse you could shoot only him. So if you shoot his horse, and even kill it, there is still the player itself, downgraded to infantry. (The fact that I can use the word "downgrade" says everything).

There is one single equation, noone can denie:

Player + horse > player + nothing.

In any case. So please close this topic, the OP statement got disproved.

Edit:
When I had to maintain additional 10k-30k horse, It suppose to give me a fair advantage. HORSE IS NOT OP, get over with it, learn to teamwork.

Where is the fucking teamplay cavalry needs to survive? Tell me! It's always the same... teamwork blablabla... pikes blablabla... throwing/ranged blablabla.... but every single of these "counterarguments" can be (and already was a hundred times) disproved.  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: _JoG_ on January 07, 2011, 07:52:22 pm
Organized cavalry will kill organized infantry, that much is clear. 

These arguments remind me of Native Khergits vs anything else comments. "Oh you just have to be organized as non Khergit, they are not overpowered." Right, so it's balanced because you have to be organized and enemy can act like headless chicken and still can win.
The biggest problem with khergits is their horse archers. It's pretty possible to stop the all-lancer team with a balanced force, otherwise everyone would play cav only.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Tai Feng on January 07, 2011, 07:55:09 pm
When I had to maintain additional 10k-30k horse, It suppose to give me a fair advantage. HORSE IS NOT OP, get over with it, learn to teamwork.

We already had this discussion and people who were saying what you're saying - lost. So be quiet.


Give me a 30,000-worth polearm that will give me as huge advantage as horse gives to you, and then we can talk about it.

A 6000-gold worth horse gives much much bigger advantage than 6000-worth polearm, or anything else for that price.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: ViiKOLD on January 07, 2011, 08:17:41 pm
Right now I'm mostly playing as 2h cav, reason for this is simple - I'm not tired yet of playing it. I've played as lance cav, Ninja, acrher, 1h, thrower, anyway at some point you want to try something new.

Back to topic. "Cav need to make mistake to die" - yeap, you right, but it's true to any other class as well, so if 2h dosn't make any mistakes it should be OP, right? Try dueling with Urist for example, 1h\2h in his hands are true OP.

But what you really want? Get back to summer? When horses was so underpowered that you rarely saw them at all.

Plated charger are OP, but how many of them you see right now? Pre-patch there was a rare situation to see more than one of them at the same time. Not all of the "plate charger riders" was owning just because of the horse, does Finn became a bad cav now?


"Player + horse > player + nothing" that depends on many other factors, like their skill, equipment, level.

Let's get it straight, using the same approach:
"Player + bow\xbow > player + no shield"
"Player + shield > player + bow\xbow"
"Player + bow + horse> player + horse"
....
Does these advantages always a deciding factor of who wins? Too many other factors are important to know outcome.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Thomek on January 07, 2011, 09:29:24 pm
Thing is however, that horse is in an extra slot.

That means:

Player + Horse + Anything > Player + Anything.

Imo horse should at least, use on of the normal 4 slots.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Everkistus on January 07, 2011, 09:45:20 pm
Imo horse should at least, use on of the normal 4 slots.
I actually agree on this one.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Joker86 on January 07, 2011, 11:33:12 pm
Does these advantages always a deciding factor of who wins? Too many other factors are important to know outcome.

Nice try, you almost got me. Almost.  :mrgreen:

Plated charger are OP, but how many of them you see right now? Pre-patch there was a rare situation to see more than one of them at the same time. Not all of the "plate charger riders" was owning just because of the horse, does Finn became a bad cav now?

Finn uses a charger currently, which is only a bit "better". Still a heavily OP horse.

But what you really want? Get back to summer? When horses was so underpowered that you rarely saw them at all.

To be honest, this was less of an problem than OP cavalry. So if I had to chose between horses from directly pre-patch and horses from this summer, I would choose the summer. But of course I would simply prefer balanced cav.

"Player + horse > player + nothing" that depends on many other factors, like their skill, equipment, level.

Let's get it straight, using the same approach:
"Player + bow\xbow > player + no shield"
"Player + shield > player + bow\xbow"
"Player + bow + horse> player + horse"

You are comparing apples to oranges here. So I marked them. (As my quote with "player" was meant to have the weapons included I marked the first players green, too.).

Horses belong into horse slots, weapons into weapon slots. The horse is always an ADDITIONAL item to the weapon slots, and I would say in most cases the horse, this additional item, is MORE important than 99% of all possible weapon slots items. A masterwork elegant poleaxe or something like that is the only thing being able to make up for... hmmm... a rouncey at the most.

So some kind of rock-paper-scissors WITHIN the same slot category (weapons) is always whished for, as it improves overall gameplay. But this doesn't work with classes which simply use an additional slot.

So cavalry stays OP, unless the additional use of a horse gets balanced by BOTH nerfed horse stats AND some secondary penalties using a horse, e.g. remarkably lower skills or poor other equipment.

Also, of course, I assumed the SAME player with same level and same skills, riding a horse or not. As I said: for the investment of a few skill points into riding skill you get higher mobility, flexibility, protection, knockdown + bump damage and increased speed bonus. Even pikes and throwing and other ranged weapons can't be counted as counterargument, as they are also a threat to footmen.

The only current disadvantage is higher upkeep, but especially for the cheaper horses you don't really feel it. A rouncey is a perfect horse for me, and I pay 370 gold upkeep or so for it. This has to be increased by 2000% or so.  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Bulzur on January 08, 2011, 12:26:27 am
Thing is however, that horse is in an extra slot.

That means:

Player + Horse + Anything > Player + Anything.

Imo horse should at least, use on of the normal 4 slots.

Wohoooo !  :shock:
Nice idea !! No more espada/steel shield/ huscarl shield / 1h axe cav !!
Or worse,  xbow/bolt/1h/shield or xbow/polearm (with 2 sorts of polarms : heavy lance and something for foot).

Cav would have to buy and use items ONLY for when they're on their horse, and thus we'll kill them way more easily on foot.
+1 for this SUGG......... except.... this is probably a talewords thingy impossible to change. :'(
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Joker86 on January 08, 2011, 12:45:28 am
Right. I can't imagine any way to place a horse in a weapon slot. This was suggested a few times already, each time it was denied: hardcoded!

Anyway, this wouldn't solve things ultimately, as a horse would still be a special item for itself. No axe or shield can give you that additional speed or two attacks at the same time (bump+slash/stab or bump+shot). It would only restrict cavalry players to 3 instead of four slots, which would be only a minor secondary disadvantage. Horses would still remain oranges compared to the weapon-apples.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Toldfield on January 08, 2011, 01:33:24 am
Ok.. to all those who think it is, it isn't. THE GAME IS NOT REALISTIC (gigantic fucking fullstop)

And if you want it to be realistic, maybe have the pikes snap and splinter to only be able to use them once... YOU SAY how can a horse survive 3-4 hits into a pointy iron sharp thing on the end of a wooden stick.. But how could a wooden stick survive one, let alone more impacts when a 800 to 1,000 pounds (360 to 450 kg) light horse, 1,000 to 1,200 pounds (450 to 540 kg) med wgt horse and a 1,500 to 2,000 pounds (680 to 910 kg) heavy horse, which is of course carrying around numerous amounts of horse blingage....  because if you especially take in consider the incredible amount of force created by the impact. say the horse is going 40 KILOMETERS/hour... which for you apes is 24 mph, minus the .4 of a mph.. and the weight of an average horse from each category based on those statistics above.

med horse:   11m/s (39.6km/h)   x  405kg  = 4455 N  (i think its newtons, SCHOOL WAS A LONG TIME AGO AND IM AN ELECTRICIAN NOW SO SHUSH YOU)
Light horse:   11m/s   x   495   =   495kg   = 5445 N
heavy horse:  10m/s (36km/h) x  795kg     =  7950 N (accounted for heavier horse moving slower. A light horse could go faster than 40km/h.. so no complaining you sooks.)

Actually, they could all go faster than 40km so cry less homos...

Considering my findings. if correct that is. THAT IS ALOT OF FUCKING FORCE. Even if it is reduced alot by the sharp edge and point of the spear there is still going to be a fucking shitload of resistance from the horses flesh and bones and it is going to make your toothpick on steroids snap under the strain.. and also a pike against a horse with plate... if you were to hit it in the breastplate, the shape of it would more likely make the pike be shrugged off and just pushed to the side of the horse doing minimal to no damage to the horse in reality, THATS WHAT I THINK.. notice the 'I'....
So be glad hitting it and making it stop in the first place and gtfo out of there or pull out another weapon of mass rape and bonk that horse or knight on his head.

To conclude cos i am getting tired of typing this to all you people who are as thick as a brick.. i will leave you with my wise words..

When the horse doesn't die, don't throw a fridge at a child, bake some bread in the shell of an egg instead.

Remember that boys and girls, words of pure wisdom indeed.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Thomek on January 08, 2011, 01:48:48 am
Well, we don't want to be realistic.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Toldfield on January 08, 2011, 02:08:04 am
ALSO, people who want it more realistic, Your character is human, he has 1 life. Have fun
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: forgivers on January 08, 2011, 02:16:36 am
lmao .....
cav is ubber, score sheet prove it

maybe you are not ubber but that an other story

/close thread
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Storm on January 08, 2011, 02:28:07 am
Imho cavalry is in no way an easy way to play.

You're mostly target number one of the enemy team. Pikes and ranged weapons give you a hard time and a horse doesn't really take much damage except for armoured horses.

The greatest advantage is that you can catch unaware people and deal 1 hit kills with that skill.

That's mostly due to the silencer hoof though. If cavalry hoofsteps would be more louder, this whole thing could be a lot more balanced.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Mattressi on January 08, 2011, 11:09:28 am
(click to show/hide)

Ignoring that your maths is wrong (you're calculating the momentum which is in N*s and you'd be better off calculating the kinetic energy unless you know the stopping distance and thus deceleration of the horse in order to find the force), no one is currently arguing realism anyway. Even so, I'd imagine that a pike would not break anyway; they were typically made of ash or similar woods which bend significantly before breakage (hence their use in some types of bows). Unless the horse managed to bend the pike considerably in order snap it, I cannot see how it would break (certainly not through compression from being landed on - the pike would sooner pierce through the entire horse before that happened). Still, I'd actually be ok with pikes breaking on use if they killed any horse one shot (can't say many cav would be ok with that though). We're not asking for pikes to one-hit a horse at any rate.

Imho cavalry is in no way an easy way to play.

You're mostly target number one of the enemy team. Pikes and ranged weapons give you a hard time and a horse doesn't really take much damage except for armoured horses.

The greatest advantage is that you can catch unaware people and deal 1 hit kills with that skill.

That's mostly due to the silencer hoof though. If cavalry hoofsteps would be more louder, this whole thing could be a lot more balanced.

I agree with the silent hooves bit, though if your avatar represents how you play, I'd say your perception is a little skewed. If you're only playing on a light horse then you'll probably feel the full wrath of horse haters (i.e. every non-cav will target you), but you'll have a horse that has significantly lower armor and health than a tank-horse and only a little more speed and manoeuvrability to help. You might have noticed that in several 'nerf cav' threads, the posters have actually been talking about nerfing the tank horses and buffing the light horses.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Toldfield on January 08, 2011, 01:46:10 pm
Ignoring that your maths is wrong (you're calculating the momentum which is in N*s and you'd be better off calculating the kinetic energy unless you know the stopping distance and thus deceleration of the horse in order to find the force), no one is currently arguing realism anyway. Even so, I'd imagine that a pike would not break anyway; they were typically made of ash or similar woods which bend significantly before breakage (hence their use in some types of bows). Unless the horse managed to bend the pike considerably in order snap it, I cannot see how it would break (certainly not through compression from being landed on - the pike would sooner pierce through the entire horse before that happened). Still, I'd actually be ok with pikes breaking on use if they killed any horse one shot (can't say many cav would be ok with that though). We're not asking for pikes to one-hit a horse at any rate.

I agree with the silent hooves bit, though if your avatar represents how you play, I'd say your perception is a little skewed. If you're only playing on a light horse then you'll probably feel the full wrath of horse haters (i.e. every non-cav will target you), but you'll have a horse that has significantly lower armor and health than a tank-horse and only a little more speed and manoeuvrability to help. You might have noticed that in several 'nerf cav' threads, the posters have actually been talking about nerfing the tank horses and buffing the light horses.

Ok 1st thing is first. Why would you calculate it using kinetic energy? Kinetic energy is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity, But this is a horse, not a high-tech machine, and this pixelated horse unless its running over completely flat ground is not going to keep the same velocity, therefore it is not kinetic energy, therefore you are dumb.
And 2. i was stating the force applied on impact. If you want to know deceleration look at the games. INSTANT OMG. And IRL i guess it would be over a few metres. YA dont want horse corpses plowing into the pikesquad.

And i never said my maths was right in the first place, IF YOU READ YOU APE, you will see below what i had done i go on to say, 'Considering my findings. If correct that is'
And i don't really see a problem in my maths tbh, it seems like what i had done in high-school. (F=MA) Force= Mass x Acceleration , unless that is the force required to get it to move, that's where its wrong but not the maths, because simple multiplication is not difficult. so there fore what i did was correct but might just have the wrong value in the velocity part.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: UrLukur on January 08, 2011, 02:32:57 pm

The Only Proper Cavalry Counter (As In Reality) Is A Pike


In reality, spear was also proper cavalry counter. I know you don't get it, so i suggest you to read more books about medieval battles or not use (as in reality) argument.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Alopen on January 08, 2011, 03:30:01 pm
In reality, spear was also proper cavalry counter. I know you don't get it, so i suggest you to read more books about medieval battles or not use (as in reality) argument.

Which battle might that be?
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: UrLukur on January 08, 2011, 03:33:03 pm
Which battle might that be?

The one where people from Milan owned Barbarossa's cavalry ?
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Toldfield on January 08, 2011, 03:38:29 pm
Which battle might that be?

its true.. indeed your underwear is made of recycled cereal.

that point made, spears were used as anti cavelry weapons. the pike derived from the spear, how did they realise long pointy things were good against the nextdoor neighbours my little pony? they prodded it with there spear, then made it longer.

You thinking spears where not used to combat cavalry shows your ignorance and total stupidity, you could probably just type it in google and find it, so do it you inbred goldfish, eat a toaster.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Mattressi on January 08, 2011, 03:41:44 pm
Ok 1st thing is first. Why would you calculate it using kinetic energy? Kinetic energy is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity, But this is a horse, not a high-tech machine, and this pixelated horse unless its running over completely flat ground is not going to keep the same velocity, therefore it is not kinetic energy, therefore you are dumb.

So, wait, I'm dumb because I suggested that since you're using velocity (instead of acceleration) you'd be better of calculating the kinetic energy (KE = 0.5 * m * v^2 where v is velocity) instead of force (F = m * a where a is acceleration NOT velocity)? Regardless of whether it's a high tech machine or a horse it still abides by the laws of physics. KE certainly is as you've defined it, but you do not need to calculate it by finding an object's acceleration over a distance (though you can), you can find it simply by finding the object's instantaneous velocity. Furthermore, if you are going to argue that the velocity changes, what good are your calculations which also use velocity (ignoring that they should not be using it anyway)? You're getting hung up on minute details (like changing velocity due to uneven ground) when the entire calculation you've performed is incorrect!

And 2. i was stating the force applied on impact. If you want to know deceleration look at the games. INSTANT OMG. And IRL i guess it would be over a few metres. YA dont want horse corpses plowing into the pikesquad.

Clearly you know nothing of basic physics, which would be fine if you weren't a complete wanker about it. If the impact is instantaneous (i.e. the velocity of an object goes from a number above zero down to zero over a distance of 0 units) then the force would be infinite: force = mass * acceleration (acceleration can be negative - deceleration - as well as positive) and if the object stops over a distance of absolutely nothing, it must have infinite deceleration at that point. This is why I was saying your maths (equation, working, whatever you want) was wrong - you aren't calculating the force even though you believe you are. The other issue is that you are assuming the pike is doing the stopping; the horse rears because it stops itself, so the pike would not be absorbing much of the horse's KE at all. If the horse dies and falls on the pike, the pike would likely pierce through the horse and the horse would stop due to the friction of it's body sliding on the ground, not due, in some way, to the pike.

And i never said my maths was right in the first place, IF YOU READ YOU APE, you will see below what i had done i go on to say, 'Considering my findings. If correct that is'

Great, so I corrected your maths (equation, working, whatever). What's the problem?

And i don't really see a problem in my maths tbh, it seems like what i had done in high-school. (F=MA) Force= Mass x Acceleration

As I've already said in this post, you were using the VELOCITY of the horse when the formula requires the ACCELERATION. You can't interchange velocity and acceleration.

unless that is the force required to get it to move, that's where its wrong but not the maths, because simple multiplication is not difficult.


If you really want to get into a semantics debate: maths is the basis for every equation you use, therefore it is acceptable to refer to it as 'your maths'. What would you have me call it; your use of physics? Well, it's certainly a part of a subset of physics, but it is actually a part of classical mechanics. Should I have stated that your use of classical mechanics was flawed? At what point have I been specific enough for you to accept that I was talking about your use of the force imparted on/by a body due to acceleration/deceleration? If I asked you to perform a basic geometric calculation for me and you used the formula for the area of a sphere when I asked you to find the volume of a sphere, would you count that as wrong maths or something else? It might be a part of what you studied in maths, but it is as much 'maths' as Newton's Second Law. Essentially you've done the same here; you've used a formula (derived from and proven by mathematics) incorrectly.

so there fore what i did was correct but might just have the wrong value in the velocity part.

So, you are saying that while you drew conclusions from an incorrect formula and shoved them down our throats with insults, what you did was correct (except for that itty bitty part about the entire premise of your argument being flawed)?


Note: I understand that you are trolling, but I still would like to prove your premise wrong, simply because I fear you may actually have been serious (and not just trolling) about that poor excuse for a use of mechanics (I just don't know if you actually thought your use of the force equation was correct). Seriously, stay in school, troll less and you might actually learn enough that one day you'll be able to hold your own in a debate instead of just trolling because you lack the knowledge to engage in a real debate. I took a troll point from you for your childish attempt at trolling (here and in other threads). It's sad when you have to resort to trolling, but fail at that too :cry:
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Toldfield on January 08, 2011, 04:02:51 pm
Mattressi, thank you for doing exactly what i wanted, you made my post what it was, it was meant to stir a reaction and it did, thank you for that.

But i want you to explain one thing, lets say that the horse it at an average velocity of 11m/s, because the horse is sustaining that speed but cannot keep it exactly 11m/s means that it isnt kenetic energy, so rule that out. (i know im going into miniscule details but as you said, TROLL POST?) sooooo. that means lets say, the horse is accelerating at .3m/s because it is already going near its top speed (just saying that this is this horses top speed) that it cant accelerate any faster. so are we going to do .3m/s x 500kg :/ . so that now seems awfully wrong, unless we calculate it like you said, deceleration, so lets say the horse stopped over 2.5 metres, so it is short of the pikemen. AND if i the horse came to a complete stop after half a second. random time chosen, although at the speed the horse was travelling prior, the deceleration will be great as we both know. so we are going to do, initial speed - final speed /time taken.

11m/s - 0m/s / .5      = ==== -22m/s..  now if we do acceleration x mass -22  x 500  = 11000 N or whatever   now im not saying this is correct. but its still alot of force.

so when the horse stops, the egg will burn.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Toldfield on January 08, 2011, 04:04:26 pm
and waiiit a minute, how did anything that i said specifically insult you. self esteem problems i see.

i had to modify this after i read something you said. You took a troll point from me? wow that hurt a lot, thank you for enlightening me on the fact that there is actually TROLL POINTS. And that you felt the actual need to take one from me makes me feel special, thanks :D
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Bulzur on January 08, 2011, 04:48:01 pm
Thanks for the physics statemnt Mattressi, and no thanks for Toldfield for bringing up this RL argument wich... we call bs when trying to balance a GAME.
Who cares about the fact a bump would actually kill someone, who cares about the fact that a wounded guy with an arrow in his feet wouldn't be allowed to walk or run that fast, who cares horses jump higher than the best ones, this way evading some pikeman, who cares about the fact that a slash to the carotide can leave the ennemy alive, providing he has 30 str and 10 IF, who cares about realistic arguments !

In a balance term, horses are OP. And it's not just a question of price (look at the number of people asking for a polearm/bow/2h/1h at a price of 60,000 gold), but of gameplay and ownage. You were killed by a couched LoC on a courser from the front, with your plate armor and 30str, and a pike ? Too bad, cav just needs to press X while you have to get the best timing and move to actually be able to stop the horse without diing. You were killed by a 1hand sword slashed from the horseman even though you stopped his horse with your polearm ? Too bad, hit boxes from TW ftw. You were 1hit by a cav with whatever weapon coming from behind that you didn't heard. Too bad, you can't feel the earth shattering when horses are galoping, and you can't hear them well either anyway. You got bumpkilled even though you blocked down ? Yep, hitbox ftw, the cav with his lance can hit in front of his horse without hitting his horse. Horse bumped you and other teammates to death, and hasn't receive any damage from that ? Yep, that's sad.

So now, we have some footman asking for a SPECIAL horse, or at least an item that fits in the "horse" equipment, wich requires 5 athletics and wich gives "+2 athletics, +2 PS, +2 PD, +2 PT". Cost is the same as a destrier. Let's call them SOCKS. How about it ? The requirement and the bonus are pure random, of course. But what's the answer to this ? HARDCODED. Even by implementing a very tiny horse, as big as a ant, wich gives the impression you're walking, you'll still won't be able to use items "non usable on horse", nor would you actually care about your athletics anymore.

Humm... then how to balance this damn horse, since we can't give footmen another expensive item. If you lower the horse life, cav will whine. If you add dmg to horse when the horse bumps, the cav will whine. If you make the horse more expensive, the cav will whine. But hey... this is Mount & Blade, and i'm pretty sure cav were supposed to be OP. So i don't have any idea about how to balance this thing, even more since we're playing a mod using TW engine, so we can't just tell TW to add another slot in the equipment sheet, or whateveR.
Good luck finding it, cause at the moment, cav is OP.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Mattressi on January 08, 2011, 05:18:56 pm
Mattressi, thank you for doing exactly what i wanted, you made my post what it was, it was meant to stir a reaction and it did, thank you for that.

...glad to be of service?

But i want you to explain one thing, lets say that the horse it at an average velocity of 11m/s, because the horse is sustaining that speed but cannot keep it exactly 11m/s means that it isnt kenetic energy, so rule that out. (i know im going into miniscule details but as you said, TROLL POST?) sooooo. that means lets say, the horse is accelerating at .3m/s because it is already going near its top speed (just saying that this is this horses top speed) that it cant accelerate any faster. so are we going to do .3m/s x 500kg :/ . so that now seems awfully wrong, unless we calculate it like you said, deceleration, so lets say the horse stopped over 2.5 metres, so it is short of the pikemen. AND if i the horse came to a complete stop after half a second. random time chosen, although at the speed the horse was travelling prior, the deceleration will be great as we both know. so we are going to do, initial speed - final speed /time taken.

11m/s - 0m/s / .5      = ==== -22m/s..  now if we do acceleration x mass -22  x 500  = 11000 N or whatever   now im not saying this is correct. but its still alot of force.

I'm sorry, I just don't have it in me to feed you tonight. Trolling the same point will reap less food each time; maybe try a fresh new topic and we'll see. Every answer to your post can be found in my previous one (or a basic mechanics textbook). I'm sure you'll read into the subject more :D

and waiiit a minute, how did anything that i said specifically insult you. self esteem problems i see.

You called everyone homos and sooks. Personally, I was not affected by your 'insults', but they are still immature and impolite nonetheless. I have to admit, I'm pretty easy troll-bait tonight :(

i had to modify this after i read something you said. You took a troll point from me? wow that hurt a lot, thank you for enlightening me on the fact that there is actually TROLL POINTS. And that you felt the actual need to take one from me makes me feel special, thanks :D

I'm glad I lightened your evening.
Title: Re: Why Cavalry Isn't Overpowered
Post by: Toldfield on January 08, 2011, 10:06:09 pm
Thanks for the physics statemnt Mattressi, and no thanks for Toldfield for bringing up this RL argument wich... we call bs when trying to balance a GAME.

uhh, wasnt actually arguing that the game should be more realistic, i was just saying to those people that post on this thread and other saying, this or that is unrealistic it needs to be changed, so i pointed out points that if making it more realistic would possibly make it less enjoyable in some aspects. that is all