Raised shield should prevent horse bump knockdown

[Joker86]

Still your suggestion needs a game-balance-wise reasoning, never mind what is possible in real life and what not. (And in my opinion a raised shield would indeed lower the injuries you suffer, but you would still have exactly the same kinetic energy hitting you, knocking you over nonetheless).

Unless you show us some kind of disbalance between cavalry and shielders, I have to disagree with your suggestion. WHAT I would agree to is to make rearing horses actually interrupt the rider. I hate stabbing a horse in the chest, stopping it, and then being stabbed into the face myself by the rider.

[Rumblood]

Joker, you take a shield for defense. It is unbalanced for cavalary to be able to bump slash the shielder, negating the defense of the shield. There already is a mechanism for cavalry to take down a shielder. It is called a couched lance or an axe with speed bonus.
Basically, these two classes should be nearly immune to each other unless they try to do something bold. Pressing 'W' isn't bold.

[Joker86]

Joker, you take a shield for defense. It is unbalanced for cavalary to be able to bump slash the shielder, negating the defense of the shield. There already is a mechanism for cavalry to take down a shielder. It is called a couched lance or an axe with speed bonus.
Basically, these two classes should be nearly immune to each other unless they try to do something bold. Pressing 'W' isn't bold.

Your suggestion said only that shielders should remain on their feet, but I understood it that way that they would still get bumped, so nothing would change concerning bump slashing. If you remove the bump at all horses should either go through shielders like ghosts or be stopped liked running into a wall, which can't be a good solution.

I know how lame bumpslashing is. The point is, in this case I think the superiority of one class over another is fine. It doesn't seem unbalanced to me, and god knows I am an infantry fanboy and hate both archers and cavalry.

The point is that, never mind how weird this might sound in the beginning, cavalry is a support class as well. It needs the other classes to distract enemies. Which makes them actually the real Ninjas on the battlefield, because 90% of their kills are unaware people, 9% of their kills are aware people who couldn't react due to different reasons (e.g. fighting someone else) and only 1% are actually a "duel" where the other one tried to defend himself. (Only concerning infantry).

A cavalryman on his own can do little against infantry or archers who are aware. But a shielder is good against everyone. He is absolutely awesome in fighting archers, he is good in fighting anybody else, and the only thing where he is bad at is fighting cavalry. It's a part of the rock-paper-scissors-system of the game that actually works.

[dodnet]

...a shield is more than adequate for a warrior to absorb a deflected impact without losing his footing. It is worth noting that a shield does not absorb the shock of the blow. Rather, it redistributes the shock over a larger area, making it possible for the human body to absorb the force of the blow with reduced risk of injury. He might be knocked back, but people are a lot better at keeping on their feet than you people seem to think.

Yeah sure, using a shield as an airbag... so a shield is connected to the body by multiple rubber bands to distribute damage evenly. Think again, you would most likely break your shield arm if a horse of a few hundred kilograms runs into you. Take up a wooden shield and try to protect yourself from a slow moving car if you dont believe me.

PS: KIDS, DONT try that at home!

[CrazyCracka420]

Joker, you take a shield for defense. It is unbalanced for cavalary to be able to bump slash the shielder, negating the defense of the shield. There already is a mechanism for cavalry to take down a shielder. It is called a couched lance or an axe with speed bonus.
Basically, these two classes should be nearly immune to each other unless they try to do something bold. Pressing 'W' isn't bold.

If you don't have something sharp and long braced into the ground a horse will run right over it.   You can take the force of a 800-1200 lb horse running into your body at 30 - 50 mph?  A shield would protect you from dying, but your ass would still be on the ground (probably with a broken arm and shoulder), and god forbid the bastard stepped on your leg or part of your body as it was knocking you down.

And don't get me started on dead horses flying through the air and magically going through people.  Just because the horse was dead doesn't mean you're now safe when that 1000lb carcass is flying into you.

[B3RS3RK]

Well I think a reduction of bump damage by 50% if the shield is raised would be ok, to prevent shielders from getting bumped to death too easily, but it should definately still bump and damage them, anything else would be ridiculously bad for game balance.

[San]

I'd be fine if I didn't get fully toppled over by a walking horse.

[Rumblood]

You can take the force of a 800-1200 lb horse running into your body at 30 - 50 mph?  A shield would protect you from dying, but your ass would still be on the ground (probably with a broken arm and shoulder), and god forbid the bastard stepped on your leg or part of your body as it was knocking you down.

Why would you take the full force of a horse? Do you people know what martial arts are? Clearly you have no idea of how to deflect a force directed at you. 

[dodnet]

Why would you take the full force of a horse? Do you people know what martial arts are? Clearly you have no idea of how to deflect a force directed at you. 

Ahhh... now I understand, you're absolutely right as this example shows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icnDE-HV46o
But on the other side... he doesn't have a shield 

[rustyspoon]

Remember that short period of time when horse bumps interrupted the rider? God I loved that. But then all the cav raged hard, so...

[Joker86]

Remember that short period of time when horse bumps interrupted the rider? God I loved that. But then all the cav raged hard, so...

Well, although I am no cav I agree this is too hard. Especially 1hd cav will become useless, even if they try not to bump slash, often enough it will happen by accident.

I would just like the following things implemented:

- rearing horse interrupts rider
- rider taking too much damage results in falling of the (still living) horse

And perhaps lower the maneuverability of that damn Arabian horse to something like 43 or 44. I already saw riders charge (admittedly bad, but still) spearmen, just to slow down a little bit out of the reach of the spear. While the cavalry is approaching at full speed the spearman will release his stab in time, but only stab air because the rider slowed down in the meantime. This is the moment where he speeds up again, stabbing the spearman into the face. I mean: wtf? Not even on foot you can use this tactic properly, so on horseback it shouldn't be possible, either. But this is just my opinion. I just think the Arabian horse is more of some hovercraft-platform than actually a horse. Feel free to lower the difficulty accordingly.

Oh, and the Palfrey is useless, it should either be buffed or made cheaper, or a combination of both.

[CrazyCracka420]

I don't really like the suggestion, just because the horse is hit doesn't interrupt your kinetic energy of the lance thrust moving forward.  I hate when I get hit with an arrow from a horse archer or horse crossbowman right as my lance is 2 inches from their face....me being hit in the non-thrusting arm wouldn't prevent that lance from connecting with your face.

Also it'd be nice if dead horses flying through the air still caused damage to people on the ground.

[Joker86]

I don't really like the suggestion, just because the horse is hit doesn't interrupt your kinetic energy of the lance thrust moving forward.  I hate when I get hit with an arrow from a horse archer or horse crossbowman right as my lance is 2 inches from their face....me being hit in the non-thrusting arm wouldn't prevent that lance from connecting with your face.

With this logic you should get hit every time someone jumps and tries to swing at you but gets stabbed a fraction of a second before he hits you. You know, all those guys with the two handed swords and axes and so on 

Interrupting the enemy by hitting him first is an important part of the game and how melee works in M&B. You shouldn't remove this. And as rider and horse act as one being (due to both being controlled by the player) it is only fair to interrupt riders if you make their horse rear. Remember, I was only talking about rearing, not hitting it in general.

Also it'd be nice if dead horses flying through the air still caused damage to people on the ground.

One reason less to try to attack cav? 

[San]

Remember that short period of time when horse bumps interrupted the rider? God I loved that. But then all the cav raged hard, so...

It'd make more sense if hitting the horse stuns the rider from a gameplay perspective  compared to stunning the rider during a bump. Doesn't make sense for getting punished for hitting the horse. Of course, there should be a damage threshold before a player would get stunned so armored horses make it harder to stun the rider.

Also, basically what joker said minus the rider falling from the horse and horse stat nerfs. My mind changed when I saw multiple players get couched/lanced after successfully stopping the horse. Have no say on the stat nerfs and maneuver tactics. Even if the horseman can stop on a dime and attack, you know what they're going to do, and you can still stop the horse.

[dodnet]

I don't really like the suggestion, just because the horse is hit doesn't interrupt your kinetic energy of the lance thrust moving forward.  I hate when I get hit with an arrow from a horse archer or horse crossbowman right as my lance is 2 inches from their face....me being hit in the non-thrusting arm wouldn't prevent that lance from connecting with your face.

Well thats a problem for all attacks in this game. If two guys swing a sword at each other only the one who hits first does damage, the other attack is canceled instantly. Even if its only a millisecond earlier. Thats completely unrealistic as a weapon would still have some momentum to hit the other guy.