cRPG

cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Game Balance Discussion => Topic started by: tankmen on July 02, 2011, 07:42:11 pm

Title: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: tankmen on July 02, 2011, 07:42:11 pm
i tend to read a lot of terrible suggestion on how to balance Cavalry,A LOT. So i thought id throw a suggestion out there, see the way i see it most people hate the fact that cavalry are good on horses and off, so if you make it some how to where cavalry cant get athletics, or at least 1-2 I'm sure we would see major decreases in cavalry doing great off horse back. Now its not to much of a nerf, but if every player knew they could back peddle or archers knew they could out run them then im sure getting dismount would be a much greater disadvantage to most players who get equal athletics as they do riding. How to implement this? well not too sure... maybe make a thing where you have to pick your class on the website, then it limited your points you can put in?Infantry,Archer,Calvary. Not really going to affect the others just Cavalry.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: justme on July 02, 2011, 08:04:45 pm
there should be at least some weight penalty for them, as they use riding equipment..
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: El_Infante on July 02, 2011, 08:07:31 pm
If there are a lot of "terrible sugestions" around to balance cav that only mean a thing. Something is wrong with cav.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Huey Newton on July 02, 2011, 08:14:27 pm
Ugh I disagree
As cav im already a flimsy agility build
With lack of athletics over 2, I will become a flimsy agi build that is slow.
Besides theres alot of hybrid inf/cav builds such as myself out there. Theres no problems with dedicated cavalry builds doing well on foot. Therefore I see no reason to touch them.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Diomedes on July 02, 2011, 08:44:53 pm
Cav builds have less health and points to spend for combat skills than infantry.  They also pay an obscene amount of money each round to use the fragile instrument of their build.  Cav are not OP as a class, though the plated charger may be a bit OP as an individual horse.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: PhantomZero on July 02, 2011, 09:09:28 pm
Cav builds have less health and points to spend for combat skills than infantry.  They also pay an obscene amount of money each round to use the fragile instrument of their build.  Cav are not OP as a class, though the plated charger may be a bit OP as an individual horse.

The plated charger isn't OP at all considering it is a massive money sink that not even a x5 can save you from.

Also I agree, cav is already very poor off the horse due to spending points in riding and agility. People putting their points into athletics just do it so they can also run around when they get dehorsed or play on maps that are very cav-unfriendly. If people couldn't put points into athletics and put it again into agility and more riding, actually increasing the problem most everyone is complaining about.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Thucydides on July 02, 2011, 09:39:00 pm
just make the horse LOUD AS FUCK so they can't troll around catching people unaware like stealth bombers
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: PhantomZero on July 02, 2011, 09:51:59 pm
just make the horse LOUD AS FUCK so they can't troll around catching people unaware like stealth bombers

Stealth bombers are loud as fuck, you can hear horses from anywhere on the map, the problem is you are always hearing horses.

The problem is sound isn't really well done in this game and horses will be ontop of you before you actually hear them. Making them louder would only make you shit your pants whenever a teammate comes up behind you after spawning in.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Thucydides on July 02, 2011, 09:55:57 pm
Stealth bombers are loud as fuck, you can hear horses from anywhere on the map, the problem is you are always hearing horses.

The problem is sound isn't really well done in this game and horses will be ontop of you before you actually hear them. Making them louder would only make you shit your pants whenever a teammate comes up behind you after spawning in.

i would rather shit my pants than get backstabbed  by some gay cav.

And no, i can't hear horses from more than 20 meters away, this is ridiculous. There have been times when i'm walking to the battle, i hear a horse, turn around, and get impaled by a lance. I should be shitting my pants hearing the loud thundering hoofs of a 400 pound animal, Its ridiculous how quiet these horses are.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Thucydides on July 02, 2011, 09:57:27 pm
and someone just gave me a - awesome point. Fuck you cav lover
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Diomedes on July 02, 2011, 10:09:40 pm
I played without sound for two months and, though horses were certainly my most dangerous foe, they were by no means overpowered - even against a deaf guy.  Keeping your wits about you, knowing where to keep yourself on a map, and finding good anti-cav maneuvers for your specific build are generally sufficient defenses against cav.  Even when one focuses on a target, even to the exclusion of taking quick glances about for sneaky horsemen, one can often predict where and how cav are maneuvering around you based on the movements of your opponents and teammates.  By the end of my deaf period I'd started bringing a bamboo spear, moving primarily next to walls, and had become proficient in the anti-cav 1h sword stab.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Seawied on July 02, 2011, 10:39:35 pm
and someone just gave me a - awesome point.

The pro-pony lobbyist are very sensitive individuals. Every 48 hours my awesome bar drops by one. I think I have a friend  :lol:
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: San on July 02, 2011, 10:52:21 pm
When cav are to your left or to your right, you can hear them decently, but if they're directly behind you, you can barely hear them at all.

The problem about sound is that it doesn't get loud enough when they're close to you, and it can be indistinguishable to cav on your left/right that are on the opposite sides of the map.

Often times,I have to look behind me when I hear even the faintest sound of a horse. They may be far behind me, or right up on me.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Felix on July 02, 2011, 10:59:50 pm
Moar stupid suggestions. Great.
I demand special mount for DRZ clan - War Bear. 400 hit points, 50 armor, 50 charge attack (claws + teeth) ftw! Leave cav alone already. If you're too weak to fight off cav - delete your char and go play some tetris. Whiners. OMG i was killed! It's OP! Fock it! Nerf nerf nerf! Noobs :D
Cool, now i am gonna have "-" awesome bar :D
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: cmp on July 02, 2011, 11:06:01 pm
Yeah, let's nerf cav by making them less effective when dismounted.
Great idea, totally unbiased.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: KaMiKaZe_JoE on July 03, 2011, 01:05:50 am
^
I love you.

OP you're suggestion, while well thought out and flawlessly communicated, is stupid.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Kay of Sauvage on July 03, 2011, 01:08:18 am
I'm almost exclusively a cav player, but you'd be hard pressed to say the few comments I've made on balance issues in the past were anything but fair. I'm not interested in giving cav an unbalanced advantage, and I don't want to make other classes weak by comparison for some personal advantage. /disclaimer

First of all, when judging how powerful cav are, lets not even bother to count kills against players who wander around alone in the open not paying attention, or standing out in the open shooting their bow or xbow. The power of cav has nothing to do with it, and they will get killed as long as cav can move and attack. Likewise, getting attacked in the back isn't something that is related to cav power, unless you are talking about improving the sound in the game, which is a fine change if it is possible. But you can't possibly expect to nerf cav to the point where you won't be attacked in the back while you fight some infantry in front of you, at least not unless you plan to make cav so useless that nobody plays as cav...

Cav speed seems to be near minimum. Remember, much of what you see is the fastest horse (courser) with max heirloom and high riding skill. At low levels with the slower horses (Sumpter, steppe), an infantry can actually block the attack then slash the horse before it completes the pass, especially if the terrain is anything but perfectly flat. The lance many times will even glance off heavily armored foes at the low max speed of the slower horses. Even successful couch attacks, if you can get enough speed to do them, will not instantly kill armored foes. If you slow down the rest of the horses to these levels, it's going to be pretty ridiculous.

Cav maneuver could have room to be reduced without utterly breaking cav, but I don't see the need. An heirloomed courser with high riding still has a high turning radius at high speeds and must slow down a lot to make 90 turns into even into rather large corridors. At low speeds, they are still making passes (going in from one direction, exiting to another) rather than bouncing in and out from mostly the same direction like high maneuver cav can sort of do at slow speeds. For the high maneuver cav, that's all they have got going for them. They are much weaker and easily taken down by arrows (often making them a liability that will get you dehorsed in the middle of enemy territory), and less deadly because of less speed bonuses (and the weak lances depend heavily on speed to be effective).

Where I agree with "nerfing" is with the cav's ability to block attacks with a shield or weapon. The blocks extend too low, blocking some attacks that are clearly aimed at the horse and not the rider (or just the rider's legs). If it is impossible to change the hitbox size for blocking on horseback, maybe it is at least possible to raise the whole thing higher into the air when on horseback?



All in all, cav aren't doing anything that is overpowered to get kills. If they are doing well in a particular round, it's due much more to the infantry's failure to defend properly. It's kinda rare to see a pikeman defending a bunch of allies. Awlpikes do help a bit, but they aren't really meant for cav defense and won't protect a large swath of allies anyway. And then when there actually is a decent effort to fight together and have someone on anti-cav duty, there's still probably going to be some allies that only focus on their next kill and don't pay attention to their positioning.

If I get dehorsed and my team is still evenly matched, I feel quite comfortable using just my slow heavy lance to defend allies from cav. If I find a long spear or similar that has such a significant length, speed, and damage advantage over any cav, then any allies near me should be pretty darn safe from cav. If you guys have watched Walt_F4 play, he defends quite a large swath of allies from cav, either discouraging their charges or killing the ones that do charge, and he still manages to aggressively contribute to the fight against infantry at the same time. When he's not actively fighting infantry or protecting a particular group of engaged allied infantry, he's probably in a good spot that anticipates the path that cav will be using. For example, you know cav are going to run along the edge of a group of your allies and take a swipe... Walt is usually waiting in the spot just beyond that (or around the corner in city maps) where the horse has to travel on the follow-through of the charge.

Stick together, protect your allies, and cav are mostly target practice.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: tankmen on July 03, 2011, 02:59:10 am
i was bored, i have 0 athletics lol
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Peasant_Woman on July 03, 2011, 03:23:43 am
Yeah, let's nerf cav by making them less effective when dismounted.
Great idea, totally unbiased.

No one may dare oppose the glorious 2hander/pole infantry master race. If a filthy peasant cav kills one of the glorious master race infantry on foot we must nerf thier class into uselessness for even having the audacity to consider it before more of the peasants forget thier place.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Tydeus on July 03, 2011, 10:39:25 am
(click to show/hide)
tldr; Cav is the best pub stomping class.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: cmp on July 03, 2011, 11:06:50 am
No one may dare oppose the glorious 2hander/pole infantry master race. If a filthy peasant cav kills one of the glorious master race infantry on foot we must nerf thier class into uselessness for even having the audacity to consider it before more of the peasants forget thier place.

Yeah, poor cav, they are so useless. Last time I've seen a cav player score a kill was 2/3 months ago!
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Dehitay on July 03, 2011, 05:35:19 pm
There are 2 things about cavalry that I want to see changed. First, I'm not sure about this, but I believe that trampling over somebody does nothing to the speed of a horse. I've seen them just straight out go bowling through the enemy and come out at what seems like the same speed they went in with. Logically and gameplay-wise, it would make more sense for there to be a sudden decrease in speed when they run over something and a flat out stop and horse rearing if they hit too many targets successively. Also, I would like for enemy cavalry to sound different and be more audible. Maybe a clop clop instead of the thud thud or possibly an angry neighing from the horse. But in the end, I'm not even sure if it's possible to change the speed or sound schemes for cavalry.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Dehitay on July 03, 2011, 05:53:26 pm
enemy cav sound different? eh, what the ...? horse is horse.

It's less about logic and more about my biased hatred of backstabbing flash ninjas
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: kongxinga on July 03, 2011, 05:59:00 pm
Cavalry good on and off horses? You must be talking about dragoons, or mounted infantry, or man on horse, not real cavalry. Dragoons  split their points, including the very dubious riding AND athletics builds, and thus can do decently on foot and on horseback. Unfortunately, they often become fodder to pure cav, who let's face it, often hunt horses first after picking off the low hanging fruit (afks etc). Assuming they survive the inevitable dismount due to lower ride, infantry duelists can outdance them due to having lower athletics or outlast them due to dragoons having lower armour, since horses are so expensive, especially compared to the cost effectiveness of heirloomed armour all ground pounders wear now. The sacrifice that dragoons make to be Ok on horse and on foot is that they do nothing very good, and must compensate for that with an overwhelming advantage in reflexes or Ping (mostly ping). Pure cav can be deadly cav hunters or crunchy squashers, but are not that hot off horse. Dont forget the potshot window of opportunity that happens if they get dismounted.


@ dehitay, trampling someone DOEs reduce speed of horse. There is a very noticeable unnatural drop in speed in crpg after hitting someone, and is the reason you cant ride through an infantry clump even if no one hits you. There is horse speed reduction in native too, but it is not as blatant as the one in crpg. The speed drop is so bad I often think it is a lag spike.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: LordRichrich on July 03, 2011, 07:08:29 pm
Cavalry good on and off horses? You must be talking about dragoons, or mounted infantry, or man on horse, not real cavalry. Dragoons  split their points, including the very dubious riding AND athletics builds, and thus can do decently on foot and on horseback. Unfortunately, they often become fodder to pure cav, who let's face it, often hunt horses first after picking off the low hanging fruit (afks etc). Assuming they survive the inevitable dismount due to lower ride, infantry duelists can outdance them due to having lower athletics or outlast them due to dragoons having lower armour, since horses are so expensive, especially compared to the cost effectiveness of heirloomed armour all ground pounders wear now. The sacrifice that dragoons make to be Ok on horse and on foot is that they do nothing very good, and must compensate for that with an overwhelming advantage in reflexes or Ping (mostly ping). Pure cav can be deadly cav hunters or crunchy squashers, but are not that hot off horse. Dont forget the potshot window of opportunity that happens if they get dismounted.



Funny, tell me another.
Leeds a "Dragoon". literally every cavalry is a dragoon, I do just aswell dehorsed as I do on my 2h alt. Like some guy said, this mod is 90% skill
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: EponiCo on July 03, 2011, 07:15:44 pm
Yeah, poor cav, they are so useless. Last time I've seen a cav player score a kill was 2/3 months ago!

No, they aren't useless but Peasant_Woman has a point. There's so many exagerations about how many kills cav makes (which is certainly ture) but if you look at the scoreboard you'll often find twohanders beating them by a good margin. But then there's also archer or shielders who reach ridiculous scores.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Dehitay on July 03, 2011, 09:40:13 pm
@ dehitay, trampling someone DOEs reduce speed of horse. There is a very noticeable unnatural drop in speed in crpg after hitting someone, and is the reason you cant ride through an infantry clump even if no one hits you. There is horse speed reduction in native too, but it is not as blatant as the one in crpg. The speed drop is so bad I often think it is a lag spike.

Do you know if jumping voids some of the speed decrease? I've seen one horseman jump on top of a group of us. Four of us went to the floor and then he managed to go running out the other side. Granted I wasn't exactly paying too much attention to if it affected his speed since I was picking myself up off the ground. But he was racing off next time I looked at him. Either way, I definitely notice that horses end up getting away with a racing speed after they trample me individually. What percentage of speed would you say is lost from trampling? 10%? And is going over multiple people the same as just an individual?
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Thucydides on July 03, 2011, 10:35:32 pm
scores are useless in a balancing conversation, since a good player can get massives amounts of Kills with any class.

2h and cav are easier since they can deal massive amounts of damage quickly while playing smart and avoiding clusterfucks/arrow spam
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Digglez on July 03, 2011, 11:41:09 pm
another terrible cav suggestion from OP
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Lech on July 04, 2011, 12:20:44 am
First of all, when judging how powerful cav are, lets not even bother to count kills against players who wander around alone in the open not paying attention, or standing out in the open shooting their bow or xbow. The power of cav has nothing to do with it, and they will get killed as long as cav can move and attack. Likewise, getting attacked in the back isn't something that is related to cav power, unless you are talking about improving the sound in the game, which is a fine change if it is possible. But you can't possibly expect to nerf cav to the point where you won't be attacked in the back while you fight some infantry in front of you, at least not unless you plan to make cav so useless that nobody plays as cav...

Those also need to be counted as cavalry is fast enough to engage any target they desire. Also, balance is done around end-game, and every end-game cav have at least 5 ridding skill so he will instant kill anyone by couch (or even normal attack against many targets). Cav can safely engage any infantry with non-long polearm weapon, without risk if he play it right. If he made a mistake he deserve to get hit and even die.

Cav speed seems to be near minimum. Remember, much of what you see is the fastest horse (courser) with max heirloom and high riding skill. At low levels with the slower horses (Sumpter, steppe), an infantry can actually block the attack then slash the horse before it completes the pass, especially if the terrain is anything but perfectly flat. The lance many times will even glance off heavily armored foes at the low max speed of the slower horses. Even successful couch attacks, if you can get enough speed to do them, will not instantly kill armored foes. If you slow down the rest of the horses to these levels, it's going to be pretty ridiculous.

Don't tell crap, any player who is in retire loop play about 85% of time in endgame with high enough ridding skill and ps to be unaffected. Cav speed and maneuver is way too high and need to be lowered by fair amount (43 maneuver/speed top), but lesser horses should be imo less affected (but still affected - 1/2 points decrease would be good approx).

Cav maneuver could have room to be reduced without utterly breaking cav, but I don't see the need. An heirloomed courser with high riding still has a high turning radius at high speeds and must slow down a lot to make 90 turns into even into rather large corridors. At low speeds, they are still making passes (going in from one direction, exiting to another) rather than bouncing in and out from mostly the same direction like high maneuver cav can sort of do at slow speeds. For the high maneuver cav, that's all they have got going for them. They are much weaker and easily taken down by arrows (often making them a liability that will get you dehorsed in the middle of enemy territory), and less deadly because of less speed bonuses (and the weak lances depend heavily on speed to be effective).

If you can't dodge arrows with them blame yourself, not the horse.

Where I agree with "nerfing" is with the cav's ability to block attacks with a shield or weapon. The blocks extend too low, blocking some attacks that are clearly aimed at the horse and not the rider (or just the rider's legs). If it is impossible to change the hitbox size for blocking on horseback, maybe it is at least possible to raise the whole thing higher into the air when on horseback?

Impossible.

All in all, cav aren't doing anything that is overpowered to get kills. If they are doing well in a particular round, it's due much more to the infantry's failure to defend properly. It's kinda rare to see a pikeman defending a bunch of allies. Awlpikes do help a bit, but they aren't really meant for cav defense and won't protect a large swath of allies anyway. And then when there actually is a decent effort to fight together and have someone on anti-cav duty, there's still probably going to be some allies that only focus on their next kill and don't pay attention to their positioning.

They do, they can engage when they want and require way more awareness to deal with them. Also, the more of them, the more overpowered they are as you can't deal with all of them in the same time, and they pick the occupied targets with ease (that how it work, they can dodge the one who is defending other guys and just poke the one he is defending - even other guy with pike). You can't pay attention to positioning of 10 guys who are lighting fast and maneuverable like hell, it's just impossible.

If I get dehorsed and my team is still evenly matched, I feel quite comfortable using just my slow heavy lance to defend allies from cav. If I find a long spear or similar that has such a significant length, speed, and damage advantage over any cav, then any allies near me should be pretty darn safe from cav. If you guys have watched Walt_F4 play, he defends quite a large swath of allies from cav, either discouraging their charges or killing the ones that do charge, and he still manages to aggressively contribute to the fight against infantry at the same time. When he's not actively fighting infantry or protecting a particular group of engaged allied infantry, he's probably in a good spot that anticipates the path that cav will be using. For example, you know cav are going to run along the edge of a group of your allies and take a swipe... Walt is usually waiting in the spot just beyond that (or around the corner in city maps) where the horse has to travel on the follow-through of the charge.

Stick together, protect your allies, and cav are mostly target practice.

Bull, cav is not target practice unless they suck.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Overdriven on July 04, 2011, 01:01:04 am
Don't tell crap, any player who is in retire loop play about 85% of time in endgame with high enough ridding skill and ps to be unaffected. Cav speed and maneuver is way too high and need to be lowered by fair amount (43 maneuver/speed top), but lesser horses should be imo less affected (but still affected - 1/2 points decrease would be good approx).


Made us statistics are fun. Seeing as level 31 is double of 1-30. That would mean that players in the retire loop are playing 50% of their time at full level/end game. Not 85%. So perhaps obey your own rule :rolleyes:

And cav is always target practice, unless the archer sucks. Nothing funner than shooting down horsies as an archer. Problem is pubby archers seem to think shooting peasants is more useful to a team than shooting horsies.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Diomedes on July 04, 2011, 02:54:51 am
Cav can safely engage any infantry with non-long polearm weapon, without risk if he play it right. If he made a mistake he deserve to get hit and even die.

My Italian Sword disagrees with you.  Even when I played without sound, with an exceptionally limited threshold for anticipating cavalry, I was able to kill many charging horses or riders with a stab.  Chalking this up to the riders "making a mistake" is disingenuous to the fragility of light cavalry and the unique flexibility of M&B's close-combat mechanics.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: kongxinga on July 04, 2011, 04:33:17 am
From my experience, hitting people while airborne on a horse does not seem to give the sudden speed drop when hitting people normally. Often the rule is, when in a clump, jump. But I am not too sure on this. And four or five people in loose formation is not enough to stop most horses at top speeds, but back in the good days with 250 people servers, I have ridden my mamluke into a clump and got stopped by losing too much momentum. Solution? Get another heavy cav to follow behind you as wingman to let both charge through.

If you are pure infantry and die to a dismounted dragoon, I am sorry for your extremely poor ping. Same goes to pure cavalry losing lance duels to dragoons. Remember for cav or dragoons, getting dismounted is usually a death sentence due to the free hits. And dragoons are often the first to get dismounted in a cavalry furball, either getting horse shot off by HA, then dying to the mop up melee cav before they get up, or getting lanced off and then shot. And everyone dies if they meet those organized hunter killer pike teams and get dehorsed.

Someone made a good point to archers, getting that +1 to kills by shooting a peasant is not as good as getting 0 kills and dehorsing 3 cav, thus saving 6 tunnelvisioning teamamte 2 hand duelers from being backstabbed, thus winning the game. But you know score fixation is heavy around here.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Digglez on July 04, 2011, 09:27:45 am
My Italian Sword disagrees with you.  Even when I played without sound, with an exceptionally limited threshold for anticipating cavalry, I was able to kill many charging horses or riders with a stab.  Chalking this up to the riders "making a mistake" is disingenuous to the fragility of light cavalry and the unique flexibility of M&B's close-combat mechanics.

Heh you've gotten me a few too many times with this.  You learn who is a good with a stabbing 1h and to dont directly charge them.  I get alot of lazy cav this way too, especially if they dont line their horse/lances up properly.  Dont underestimate the 1h stab weapons when your horse is doing 30mph to impale itself.

I would like them to add the horse charge dmg after it dies/going down though if you're in the way.  That'd be fun.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Lech on July 04, 2011, 11:47:53 am
Made us statistics are fun. Seeing as level 31 is double of 1-30. That would mean that players in the retire loop are playing 50% of their time at full level/end game. Not 85%. So perhaps obey your own rule :rolleyes:

And cav is always target practice, unless the archer sucks. Nothing funner than shooting down horsies as an archer. Problem is pubby archers seem to think shooting peasants is more useful to a team than shooting horsies.
24+/27+ (class dependent) is endgame.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Overdriven on July 04, 2011, 08:23:53 pm
24+/27+ (class dependent) is endgame.

How so? I'd say only when you've gotten full stats can it be said as endgame.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Thucydides on July 04, 2011, 11:16:14 pm
How so? I'd say only when you've gotten full stats can it be said as endgame.

not really, its a gradual progression towards an endgame. Generally, at 27 the attribute and stat points added will not dramatically affect your ability to play, hence you're stable and at the "end game"

Diomedes, yes you can dehorse a horse with a 1h stab, but does it happen often? I can easily chop down a horse when i overhead them or left swing, but rarely is that possible because of the incredible maneuverability of horses, allow them to abort a charge when i spot them. You probably can get kills with it because people don't expect a 1h to be able to kill a horse, but if you had a sign that said "i can stab really well" do you think you'll be able to pull off the same results?  When you're a 2h or polearm, Cav are much more weary of you compared to if you were a 1h.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: roymorrison on July 04, 2011, 11:31:00 pm
Why do I receive damage when I am run over by a horse, but a horse does not receive damage when it slams into a wall going full speed?

I dislike cav as much as the next guy, but seriously the majority of cav are crappy players who couldn't couch an afk to save their multiplier, so it's not really a big deal.

I think if the game balanced teams based on class, there would be less complaining about cav and archer spam.  It's only when one team has an overwhelming amount of cav that I start to see a problem.  If both teams autobalanced after the first round based on class, and both teams received equal numbers of cav, archers, and shielders, I think we'd see a much more balanced and fun battle.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Lech on July 05, 2011, 12:30:31 am
How so? I'd say only when you've gotten full stats can it be said as endgame.

With my build, i reach the endgame at lvl 28 (5if is not crucial, as it's not 6 wm). From lvl 25 i have near engame as i lack just 1 shield, 1 wm, 1 ps and 5if and i'm on just 15  str.

2h and Pole builds can reach engame faster as they do just fine with lesser amount of power strike than 1h sword + shield. Horse Archers reach engame slower than my build, as it's done on lvl 30. But average endgame is between the lines i stated, judging from builds i meet in game.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Diomedes on July 05, 2011, 12:59:57 am
Diomedes, yes you can dehorse a horse with a 1h stab, but does it happen often? I can easily chop down a horse when i overhead them or left swing, but rarely is that possible because of the incredible maneuverability of horses, allow them to abort a charge when i spot them. You probably can get kills with it because people don't expect a 1h to be able to kill a horse, but if you had a sign that said "i can stab really well" do you think you'll be able to pull off the same results?  When you're a 2h or polearm, Cav are much more weary of you compared to if you were a 1h.

Yeah, the two things that generally stop me from 1-stabbing light cav are their maneuverability and the exceptional skill of some players.  My post earlier was in regards to the idea that cavalry are unbeatable in combat - which I don't find to be the case.  There is, however, the other issue of light cav being able to pull out before a fight at the absolute last moment.  Not just rapid acceleration through a skirmish, which seems very sensible IMO, but full-stopping or turning on a quarter before engaging.  So long as fast and maneuverable cav can withhold committing to fights they're fairly safe from everything but bowmen.  That said, when light cav commit to fights they're at a far higher risk than most other players.  Strong hits to the horse's head, stabs during the initial rush (what I do), and leaping blows with a slight speed bonus all doom light cavalry players to a quick and difficult-to-avoid death.

Balancing cav is a tricky and fraught business which I try to stay away from.  I posted my earlier comments merely to correct a factual inaccuracy, rather than to build premises for a larger argument.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Ronin on July 08, 2011, 10:54:39 am
In native I get rid of the enemy horses with my throwing weapons with ease. But in cRPG I don't have throwing based character, because it is said to be useless. Maybe buffing throwing again would balance the cavalry a bit.

From what I've seen the only thing that can balance the cavalries is the map. If it is a siege map you can't play cavalry for example. In most of the battle maps, cavalry owns.

Edit:
And sorry diomedes but if a cavalry with a 180 pixels long lance is beaten to an italian sworder, he deserves to die.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Siiem on July 08, 2011, 11:41:05 am
I only have issues with MW heavly lances 1 hit killing without actually couching, other than that cav is mostly fine.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Renegat on July 08, 2011, 11:45:20 am
Hello,
in my opinion, the main problem is cav's damages.
Indeed, most of lancers can one-shot almost everybody with a simple hit (in other words, not a couched lance hit), even if they are not at their full speed (and even if you have a heavy armor). Moreover, lancers use very long weapon, so most of inf can't do anything against them. So for me cav, and in particulary lancers, are OP.
Besides, i don't know if it's the same in NA, but in EU, the number of cav increased a lot those last months. So it's not rare to see like a dozen of cav (and 75% of those cav are lancers) in the same team, which is a bit unplayable for inf who don't have any way to protect themselves.
As far as i'm concerned, the only way i found to protect myself against lancers was to become a 1h cav. In this way, i can flee ennemy lancers ><. Of course, i can one shot many poeple (with a mw military cleaver and at full speed i can), but 1h/2h cav take much more risk than lancers, because they are vulnerable against 2h sword, most of polearmes, and 1h sword (if they know how to jump slash or if they know how to use a thrust).
So in my opinion the main problem of cav balance is the fact that lancers do so much damages in compare to other class. And the high number of cav is due to this problem, because we often see lancers with 35/45 kills at the end of a row, so poeple want to do the same and become lancers.

PS: Sorry if i did grammar mistakes, i'm not english so i still have difficulty in writting english correctly  ^^

PS2: And please don't say me that lancers do many kills because they are skilled, maybe 10% of them are, the rest just use a (herloomed) sarranid warhorse + (herloomed) heavy lance and one shot everything without taking any risk

PS3: Siiem, you're realy luckie if you're one shot only by lancers who have mw heavy lance xd
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Vibe on July 08, 2011, 12:07:18 pm
I only have issues with MW heavly lances 1 hit killing without actually couching, other than that cav is mostly fine.

Doesn't even need to be a MW lance.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Seawied on July 09, 2011, 08:58:44 am
Doesn't even need to be a MW lance.

doesn't even require a whole lot of PS either. Light lance + 3 or 4 ps + courser=1 hits.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Tears of Destiny on July 09, 2011, 09:01:26 am
doesn't even require a whole lot of PS either. Light lance + 3 or 4 ps + courser=1 hits.

Yup, regardless of what I am using, my 5PS 9 Riding Courser Gen 1 character can one shot anything shy of a STR build in Black armour or some other such thing, but aiming for the head and/or couching solves that rather easily. Or if I want to be a jerk, Bump/Lance, the latest NA jerk move that is out-doing bump-slashing in popularity.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Magikarp on July 09, 2011, 02:18:56 pm
Yup, regardless of what I am using, my 5PS 9 Riding Courser Gen 1 character can one shot anything shy of a STR build in Black armour or some other such thing, but aiming for the head and/or couching solves that rather easily. Or if I want to be a jerk, Bump/Lance, the latest NA jerk move that is out-doing bump-slashing in popularity.
To hit people you got to risk a lot. If they are backstabbing you, well, than thats the same with any other melee class: you are dead.
If they charge you head on, they can't couch nor can they hit you if you downblock. If they try to bumpslash/stab you, than they are close enough to get meleed.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Lech on July 09, 2011, 02:34:20 pm
To hit people you got to risk a lot. If they are backstabbing you, well, than thats the same with any other melee class: you are dead.
If they charge you head on, they can't couch nor can they hit you if you downblock. If they try to bumpslash/stab you, than they are close enough to get meleed.

But cavalry can backstab easier thanks to HIGH SPEED. To hit people you don't risk a lot if you can play lancer. They can couch head on. If they bumpslash/stab and have donkey reflex they hit you before you chamber the attack.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Magikarp on July 09, 2011, 03:18:44 pm
But cavalry can backstab easier thanks to HIGH SPEED. To hit people you don't risk a lot if you can play lancer. They can couch head on. If they bumpslash/stab and have donkey reflex they hit you before you chamber the attack.
What's this bullshit? Couching is one of the easiest moves to dodge, not to mention how easily it is to kill the rider while youre at it.

They cant bumpslash you if you attack them first, if you are a onehander, well, it's harder, but thats only normal, because onehander/2hander cav is your worst nightmare.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Lech on July 10, 2011, 12:36:41 pm
What's this bullshit? Couching is one of the easiest moves to dodge, not to mention how easily it is to kill the rider while youre at it.

They cant bumpslash you if you attack them first, if you are a onehander, well, it's harder, but thats only normal, because onehander/2hander cav is your worst nightmare.

Couching is not that easy to dodge when fighting skilled coucher with proper build and horse, it's not to easy to kill rider either. It's matter of proper positioning and awareness too.

They can't bumpslash, but they can bumpstab. As 1hander i fear bumpslash the most, even more than lance cavalry.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Magikarp on July 10, 2011, 12:39:57 pm
Couching is not that easy to dodge when fighting skilled coucher with proper build and horse, it's not to easy to kill rider either. It's matter of proper positioning and awareness too.

They can't bumpslash, but they can bumpstab. As 1hander i fear bumpslash the most, even more than lance cavalry.
Bumpstab wont do much damage at all.

And about couching: it's easy as hell to dodge, either move away from the horse or get in the middle of it, works like a charm. Or just stab the horse/rider, even easier.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Ming on July 10, 2011, 12:43:22 pm
If u add the weight penalty to the riders equipment should greatly reduce the number of heavy cavs out there. Make the archers and HAs easier to shoot down lancers. The heavier the armor you wear, the slower the horse goes.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Magikarp on July 10, 2011, 12:46:17 pm
If u add the weight penalty to the riders equipment should greatly reduce the number of heavy cavs out there. Make the archers and HAs easier to shoot down lancers. The heavier the armor you wear, the slower the horse goes.
Wait, now it's suddenly heavy cav thats the problem? Wut?

Scanning now, please wait....

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Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Lech on July 10, 2011, 12:50:40 pm
If u add the weight penalty to the riders equipment should greatly reduce the number of heavy cavs out there. Make the archers and HAs easier to shoot down lancers. The heavier the armor you wear, the slower the horse goes.

If anything make the penalty lower for armored horses and destrier and the black horse. If it's made into the game (probably wont).

Bumpstab wont do much damage at all.

And about couching: it's easy as hell to dodge, either move away from the horse or get in the middle of it, works like a charm. Or just stab the horse/rider, even easier.

Getting into middle don't work against decent coucher, moving away is not always possible. Stabbing the horse is impossible with many weapons against great lance (against heavy it's a bit easier but even with war spear it's quite difficult against decent player).
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Ming on July 10, 2011, 12:51:04 pm
Wait, now it's suddenly heavy cav thats the problem? Wut?

Scanning now, please wait....

(click to show/hide)

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Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Keshian on July 10, 2011, 05:54:34 pm
Hello,
in my opinion, the main problem is cav's damages.
Indeed, most of lancers can one-shot almost everybody with a simple hit (in other words, not a couched lance hit), even if they are not at their full speed (and even if you have a heavy armor). Moreover, lancers use very long weapon, so most of inf can't do anything against them. So for me cav, and in particulary lancers, are OP.
Besides, i don't know if it's the same in NA, but in EU, the number of cav increased a lot those last months. So it's not rare to see like a dozen of cav (and 75% of those cav are lancers) in the same team, which is a bit unplayable for inf who don't have any way to protect themselves.
As far as i'm concerned, the only way i found to protect myself against lancers was to become a 1h cav. In this way, i can flee ennemy lancers ><. Of course, i can one shot many poeple (with a mw military cleaver and at full speed i can), but 1h/2h cav take much more risk than lancers, because they are vulnerable against 2h sword, most of polearmes, and 1h sword (if they know how to jump slash or if they know how to use a thrust).
So in my opinion the main problem of cav balance is the fact that lancers do so much damages in compare to other class. And the high number of cav is due to this problem, because we often see lancers with 35/45 kills at the end of a row, so poeple want to do the same and become lancers.

PS: Sorry if i did grammar mistakes, i'm not english so i still have difficulty in writting english correctly  ^^

PS2: And please don't say me that lancers do many kills because they are skilled, maybe 10% of them are, the rest just use a (herloomed) sarranid warhorse + (herloomed) heavy lance and one shot everything without taking any risk

PS3: Siiem, you're realy luckie if you're one shot only by lancers who have mw heavy lance xd

Fully agree.  NA cav population has doubled here as well, mostly lancers on coursers and arabians.  Oftentimes half the server will be cav and there is pretty much nothing you can do.  If you are an archer you can shoot a courser 3-4 times before it dies, but all they have to do is charge you as soon as you hit their horse and 1-hit kill you before you can draw your bow back for another shot.  Oftentimes top 6 on each team will be cav (many pretty average players), and almost entirely lancers on coursers and arabians.  If you try to dodge too early a lancer the high speed and maneuverability of the horse and the ease of turning a lance (i see 1-shot turned almost facing behind them on the horse hits all the time) makes it very difficult to do.  If you wait to last moment you can occasionally succeed against bad and average cav, but often not since the acceleration rate of fottmen is for crap since january so you move like your stuck in mud when you first start moving.

I can only think Magikarp is just really bad cav that he doesn't see this as they are the main ones having trouble getting more than a 2:1 k/d.  We keep k/d stats on NA - if you ignore gravity -> 1st place, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th - cav lancers, all but Rohypnol use champion courser with MW heavy lance and he uses champion catatphract with mw lance.  Out of a dozen cRPG classes, cav have come to completely dominate NA battle servers on EVERY map, no such thing a s a cav and non-cav map anymore.  It takes 5-7 arrows to take down a champion courser nowadays and they get stopped all the time by pikeman and still ride away (i've seen them do it sometiems twice in the ssame round).  They make no noise and will often kill as amnay as 8 in 8 seconds as they 1 shot every single person they hit.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Bramd on July 10, 2011, 06:03:09 pm
I can only think Magikarp is just really bad cav that he doesn't see this as they are the main ones having trouble getting more than a 2:1 k/d.  We keep k/d stats on NA - if you ignore gravity -> 1st place, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th - cav lancers, all but Rohypnol use champion courser with MW heavy lance and he uses champion catatphract with mw lance.  Out of a dozen cRPG classes, cav have come to completely dominate NA battle servers on EVERY map, no such thing a s a cav and non-cav map anymore.  It takes 5-7 arrows to take down a champion courser nowadays and they get stopped all the time by pikeman and still ride away (i've seen them do it sometiems twice in the ssame round).  They make no noise and will often kill as amnay as 8 in 8 seconds as they 1 shot every single person they hit.

I dunno, I think it's hilarious...  His argument is "It's bullshit that archery can sometimes, with very specific equipment, 2 shot a person...  Meanwhile, I on my horse can only 1 shot someone...  But it's pure skill...  Because cavalry are clearly the only players who put themselves in any danger in order to kill someone.  Infantry?  They are op, they can 2 or three shot people...  So are archers...  Make it easier for me to one shot people...  It's only fair...  Because I have skill."

It's fantastic.  Really an airtight logical argument.
Title: Re: how to truely balance cavalry
Post by: Torben on July 10, 2011, 06:10:42 pm
Yeah, let's nerf cav by making them less effective when dismounted.
Great idea, totally unbiased.


hehe +1