I am going to take a page out of Overdriven's book and ask that rage be attempted to kept out of this thread. I am going to try myself but I think some leaked in anyway.
To start with, this patch while weakening Cavalry did not 'break it' or make it 'unplayable' so please do keep that out of here. I think the 6 riding for a Courser is not too unrealistic (though too high for Desert Horse). But back to the actual topic of this thread.
The stunning effect after Horse Bumping is in my opinion too extreme. I GTX while alive for the first time ever last night. Perhaps if this was one of the earliest Cavalry changes, the story might've been different but in light of other changes, it's unreasonable. I am primarily a Lancer Cav so other types please do chime in. But here are my issues with this:
1) With the angle nerf, if I take on an infantry head-on, he now needs to be in the center or very slightly to my then preferred side of the horse to ensure that a jump doesn't put him outside my lance's reach and get me killed. That used to mean that nearly every successful lancing run for myself will have a bump in it. However now, the bump cancels my lance thrust allowing it to do only 1/8 or so damage. If the full angle of lancing existed, this would not be an issue at all as every run would just be a wide lancing run.
2) I intentionally bump lance sometimes. I don't see many other Cav doing this one but it is a critical part of my Cav arsenal. A lot of inf will never drop their block and attack an oncoming cav, and a couched lance rarely catches an aware player. So I decelerate enough where I can bump, turn and lance. I hate losing something that I actively had to practice many times and I feel requires some measure of skill to do especially considering that the deceleration on a Courser means certain death on failure.
3) If I don't bump during the lancing, the bump then becomes a necessary follow-up. Part of this is due to the fact that my lance won't 1-shot anyone but the most lightly armored even at top speed (which I understand and won't dispute). However since many ranged players can survive, when I run after hitting my back is perfectly exposed. If I don't bump a good ranged player, I die. It tends to be as simple as that sometimes. Other times, the bump seals the deal so to say. The lance drops em down to 3% health and the bump finishes it.
4) The stun drops my shield block. I could perhaps live with all the offensive losses, but really, I drop my block??? I need that thing to protect me. It is not a minor concern, all but 1 of my deaths last night when mounted were due to the bump stun. Many of them were due to the shield drop.
5) The stun means I can't steer my horse. Get on a fast horse, hell, any horse and you'll realize the moment you can't maneuver your horse, something bad will happen. If ever I ping spike or rubberband, I run to the edge of the map and sit it out. This was even worse than the shield block dropping. This means that a cav can never maneuver through multiple players. I've found that a lot of 2hand players who can wreck teams use worse players as their early meat shields. It doesn't help your team much to kill the meat shield, he's going to die anyway so you bump him and take out the guy behind him. That offensive capability is lost. Defensively, many times the only way out of a tight situation is by ramming through enemy infantry arrayed irregulary such that you bump everyone whose weapon can reach you. This becomes impossible when you lose the turning.
Now while this is out of my range of expertise. I think the bump stun is even worse for a) Heavy Cav who deliberately follow up a lancing run by trying to bump everyone in sight. As is their prerogative! And b) to all bump slashers. As frustrating as bump slashing may be, it is a higher risk than lancing for usually a lower chance of reward in my opinion. But the other thing is, this is something that existed in Mount&Blade since near the very start. This was in the original Mount & Blade back when you could actually talk to Kradus, Xerina & Dranton back in good old Zendar. Kradus I believe taught you how to couch and Dranton how to bump slash. It's a bit absurd to take out something so integral to the game so late I think.
