I know you hate horseman but...

[BADPLAYERold]

Cavalry isn't OP (nothing in the game is).  The problem is retarded infantry not forming up into decent ranks and fighting as groups.  Stupidity to counter a natural strength doesn't mean that an item is OP.
 
2handers do twice as much damage as mounted polearms, so by your logic, they are OP and need to be nerfed.   

You can't expect people to "form up into decent ranks and fight as groups " (aka camping a hill cause thats all that ever happens) it's a game and people want to have fun, doing that isn't fun and when you don't do that Cavalry is terribly overpowered and even when you DO do that it is overpowered because you can just wait on the outside of the group until they engage your team and then bam free kills from behind on the enemy for you.

I don't know why you think 2handers do twice as much damage as mounted polearms.. speed bonus makes lances do the most damage of anything in the game (except I think some 1handers/morningstar on horseback but they are very short) not to mention couches doing a ton of damage even if they don't 1hit everything anymore.
I've played a Cavalry build with 9PS recently and I could 1shot most people, how is that balanced?

[H3ADSH0T]

I agree with CrazyCracka420. I think that C-RPG has the most fun potential when teams use actual tactics and nerfing something that is -mechanically- strong (Cavalry in real warfare) is silly, when it can be counter played. Removing our choices for strategy makes the game shallow and uninteresting. Not to mention a lot of things in C-RPG COULD be balanced to make more "sense" like this horses get nuked to the legs theory:

Players that have a certain amount of weight equipped should not be able to jump and twirl like ninjas.

In any case, if there were more options for anti cavalry techniques you might not cry so much. Pikes should be able to be set and have a couch effect on charging cavalry. Counter play to this is exactly what front line Cav would be doing for real, wedging and suiciding on your pike/shield wall.

tl;dr Buff tactics, nerf nothing.

[CrazyCracka420]

Agreed, it comes down to tactics, not something being overpowered.  When it's properly countered, horses are completely neutered (marginalized).  It would be really cool if things were different in warband like you say, it would be nice to be able to pound a shield into the ground to create a half body protection from ranged.  Or would be nice if archers could pound stakes into the ground which would injure horses and make them useless.  Pikes being able to be braced into the ground would also be cool.

That being said, pikes and tight infantry formations can make horseman useless.  I've seen it happen on servers where the infantry moves slowly together and the horseman can only circle the outside thumbing themselves.  If one gets antsy enough they can sometimes pickoff people on the outside, but generally they are just waiting for the infantry lines to clash.  This is how warfare works, it's called tactics.  You have to do something to overcome something, this causes you to vulnerable to something else.  Rock, paper, scissors people.

Nothing needs to be nerfed, like headshot says, tactics and player teamwork needs a buff.  Wish the dev's in this mod (and like most games) would stop catering to the loudest whiners...most people are happy with the game (and most people who play don't post on the forums...they have regular jobs).

badplayer, i'm not talking about hits from lancer cavalry, I'm saying overall damage for the month of february (or january) in NA1 has stats on page 4 of this topic (that I copied over).  With 6 powerstrike on a champion courser most of the time when I thrust into someone I don't kill them unless they've already taken damage (or they are very weakly armored).

[Ronin]

Hmm, pikes and throwing weapons are natural counters to horses. Also now, two handed swords and other poles make excellent counters to horse as it is easy to outreach a cavalry. Also archers and xbowmen can shoot them. So they have already many counters when you think some of these factors are combined. However, no mater what we do retards are everywhere, among us. In fact we are a few men who have healthy brains and we are among them to be honest. So cav will always be OP. That is, of course, unless the cavalry would be like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzcLQRXW6B0

I know this wouldn't be useful since many people can't even use siege equipment, moreover they destroy it whenever they see it. But I have a small suggestion that will most likely to go unnoticed:
Maybe if we would be able to put spikes to the ground, in the same way we deploy siege shields or construction sites, cavalry would be fine.
Edit: Lolz crazy cracka said it before me.

[CrazyCracka420]

Ronin that is historically accurate.  Before battle archers would literally cut down branches from trees, cut them into crude sharp points, and hammer them into the ground.  It might not stop a horseman from killing someone right behind the spikes, but it certainly would disable the horse who ran into it.

I've mentioned it a few times in passing, but I think that would be a nice piece of siege equipment to allow people to use.

The problem (I think) is that weapons aren't "static" the only time they do damage is when they are being thrust.  The whole game would be a lot better if weapons had actual damage staticly set to the item.  A pike that isn't swinging would still fuck you up if you ran into it.

[H3ADSH0T]

I think that I would suggest imposing a slowing effect on horses struck in the legs, at least for a time. But then I remind myself of what horses are actually capable of. I'm from a town with one of the largest rodeos in the US. One year a horse broke its leg during an event and proceeded to THRASH and cause havoc. It took well over 20 men to pacify it before it could be tranquilized and put out of its misery. Hell, in PW a horses speed and maneuver go down the further it's health does. If certain things were balanced to reflect this even that would be an addition I couldn't cry about.

[Ronin]

Ronin that is historically accurate.  Before battle archers would literally cut down branches from trees, cut them into crude sharp points, and hammer them into the ground.  It might not stop a horseman from killing someone right behind the spikes, but it certainly would disable the horse who ran into it.

I've mentioned it a few times in passing, but I think that would be a nice piece of siege equipment to allow people to use.

The problem (I think) is that weapons aren't "static" the only time they do damage is when they are being thrust.  The whole game would be a lot better if weapons had actual damage staticly set to the item.  A pike that isn't swinging would still fuck you up if you ran into it.

Yeah I saw it in Medieval 2 total war. Won many battles with that function of English Longbowman. (By the way wow silly we are, learning history from computer games not history books)

I think the damage system would be perfectly awesome but it is not even needed after all. Just make it so, it will block the path for horses and be just a bit more durable than siege shields. So that it will give those cavalry a stop after all.

[CrazyCracka420]

I did learn about the archers using crude spikes (usually made from nearby branches off trees) from reading about historical battles.

Red Cliff is by far my favorite "historical" war movie.  I wish they had more European wars and battles on film in the same direction and style as Red Cliff.  There's so many wars and battles to choose from...but they're any that I've seen are all made for families and don't incorporate the tactics, formations, and actual warfare that Red Cliff does.

[Auphilia]

If they implemented a +% damage for hitting someone in the back, cavalry would be fine. You would see more people using stealth as well. People would be forced to pay more attention to their surroundings, and we wouldn't have as many ridiculous nerfs.

Honestly, I'd rather see weapons being very lethal. Arrows being able to 1-2 hit, daggers being able to 1 hit from the back and 2-3 hit from the front, bigger weapons of course being able to flat out one hit pretty much anything. If we quit letting people make mistakes, they will learn not to. It is a mistake to wander on your own aimlessly and get run down by cavalry. If you want players to play practically and realistically, you have to implement practical and realistic mechanics. Why does anyone need to be aware of horses when they can soak multiple lances and be trampled a dozen times before actually dying? Why do we need to stay in cover and not wander aimlessly when we can take dozens of arrows, assuming they hit us?

TL:DR If you want people to use tactics and play smart, increase the penalty for being stupid. Make it a lot easier to die. Reward players for staying alive and working with their team.

[Zerran]

Hmm, pikes and throwing weapons are natural counters to horses. Also now, two handed swords and other poles make excellent counters to horse as it is easy to outreach a cavalry. Also archers and xbowmen can shoot them. So they have already many counters when you think some of these factors are combined. However, no mater what we do retards are everywhere, among us. In fact we are a few men who have healthy brains and we are among them to be honest. So cav will always be OP. That is, of course, unless the cavalry would be like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzcLQRXW6B0

I know this wouldn't be useful since many people can't even use siege equipment, moreover they destroy it whenever they see it. But I have a small suggestion that will most likely to go unnoticed:
Maybe if we would be able to put spikes to the ground, in the same way we deploy siege shields or construction sites, cavalry would be fine.
Edit: Lolz crazy cracka said it before me.

You have never played pikeman I assume? Pikes are great for keeping cav away, as long as the pikeman dedicates all their attention to the cav, but as soon as they engage melee, cav swarm them. Pikes are great for keeping cav away, but not nearly as useful for actually killing them as ranged.

That said, personally I'd like to see the armor reduction scale with the horse's base body armor, so the heavier horses, while still weak around the legs, won't die in 1 hit. Also, make all horses have higher leg armor than they do now. At the same time, make cav riders take fall damage if they get dehorsed, increasing based on the speed the horse was traveling at, and make horses take damage if they slam into a wall. NOT FOR REALISM, but simply because it means that cav would no longer have essentially 2 lives, and would have to be more careful about where they charge.

[Ronin]

You have never played pikeman I assume? Pikes are great for keeping cav away, as long as the pikeman dedicates all their attention to the cav, but as soon as they engage melee, cav swarm them. Pikes are great for keeping cav away, but not nearly as useful for actually killing them as ranged.

I didn't say which one is more useful against cav. Pikes or ranged...
But yeah, it is possibly like how you said.

That said, personally I'd like to see the armor reduction scale with the horse's base body armor, so the heavier horses, while still weak around the legs, won't die in 1 hit. Also, make all horses have higher leg armor than they do now. At the same time, make cav riders take fall damage if they get dehorsed, increasing based on the speed the horse was traveling at, and make horses take damage if they slam into a wall. NOT FOR REALISM, but simply because it means that cav would no longer have essentially 2 lives, and would have to be more careful about where they charge.

I would love to see that. Yet, once again it seems hardly possible.

[H3ADSH0T]

I still think that tactics > everything. Cavalry might "swarm" the pikeman once they turn their attention to melee but if people in C-RPG could be coaxed to work together anything like the people in MM line battles do, we'd have halfway decent formations and Cavalry would be forced to counterplay or ride away.

[BlueKnight]

Players that have a certain amount of weight equipped should not be able to jump and twirl like ninjas.

Not sure if you know, but some of the best knights were demanded to be able to do backflips in full plate. The deffinition of a good knight was really demanding and agility was the most important feature of such a badass. They also had to be able to get back to vertical position on a horse while they were already in horizontal, so they had to change their position by 90 degrees while actually speeding on a horse. All the stuff was done in plate. Therefore they could do a simple jump.

[kongxinga]

Dont you guys even dare threaten to nerf my champion Arabian! It's already ridiculous that I have to go to 7 riding and it costs more than a courser does and it's only a 100 gold less than a destrier and one point slower. Which in my opinion is stupid since it has less armor which should make it lighter -____- but in any case as it goes for 2h cav I'm the horse Xbow slayer with my horse. I have yet to find a horse archer hat can get away from me. And as for taking so many arrows a lot of the time it's only because I can minimize the damage by riding away from the projectiles while if I'm charging them. Let's just chestaclese laser war darts one shotted my Arabian ((

People need to take into account the large differences running away from projectiles makes. Back in native beta someone did a test on crossbows and piercing shields. He found out that the crossbow could not pierce the shield when the target was standing, but did pierce if the target was walking with shield up forwards.

This works both ways though. If you have the misfortune of turning your horse into an arrow or bolt (while say dodging friendly fire), the speed bonus can get your horse one shot. OTOH, riding away can let you take many, many arrows, which is why HA duels where both are riding away take a long time despite many hits, and are often decided by 1 speed bonused arrow.

[Joker86]

Back in native beta someone did a test on crossbows and piercing shields. He found out that the crossbow could not pierce the shield when the target was standing, but did pierce if the target was walking with shield up forwards.

As far as I know this is a bug. Whenever the LOWERED shield is hit by a projectile, it doesn't take any damage, even if it's a ballista. But if you are BLOCKING shield hitpoints get removed the usual way.