The purpose of a video game is to be fun. There are many aspects of a game that people find enjoyable. Most players in CRPG enjoy the progression, the variety of builds, team work, and many other aspects including the one I want to discuss now: Challenge.
Every game has a certain aspect of difficulty and challenge to over come. The desirable challenges in CRPG include fighting against skilled opponents, organized teams, people with builds that counter yours, and many others.
The least desirable of these in my opinion is the horse crossbow. Normal lancing cav have to put themselves in danger to get a hit, and are countered by long range weapons such as archers, crossbows, and various polearms. Throwing cav and normal horse bowmen are countered by their limited ammunition supply. Horse crossbows have none of these issues to worry about, since in most cases they are able to carry a bow and three stacks of bolts. They do not have to be near an opponent, they are faster than most opponents, and their slow firing rate coupled with their three stacks of ammunition mean they really have no weaknesses.
Repeatedly I have seen different players (and not just Rohypnol/MrDick) run in circles as they are the last ones alive versus a team of three, five, or even more. They will draw the round out until the last second, where they commit suicide to keep the round from drawing, or in some cases even allow the round to draw.
Defenders of the class will say "they are just playing their class", and that is correct. It is up to the developers to fix the issue with the horse xbow cav. But why should they fix it? Xbow cav is something you can play in campaign of warband, and there are similar classes in other mods. Why should it be fixed?
As I stated before, games are about fun. One important aspect of games that help them be fun is flow. The flow of a game is extremely important to the fun. For example, Super Meat Boy is a game that is excellent at managing the flow of the game play. It is very challenging, and anyone who has played the game can attest that you die often. The respawn system of the game allows the player to get back into the action quickly, and deaths become less frustrating. As a bystander at the end of a CRPG match, you are prevented from getting back into the combat for minutes at a time. Minutes may not seem like a long time, but when those minutes could be spent gaming, it is significant. Even if it's two minutes at the end of the match, imagine that occurring five rounds in a row. That's ten minutes where 95% of the players in the match watch a pointless battle where some player runs in circles and the players in the game wait.
Basically, the horse crossbow class is poor game design all around. It spoils the fun for the majority of players, it lacks balance, it disrupts the flow of game play, and I am confident that many other CRPG players share in the same concerns that I have.
Now lets discuss possible balance changes:
Option 1: When wounded, horses move slower. This would enable archers and crossbowmen to focus a horse xbow person, each arrow causing the horse to move a tiny bit slower. Until when the horse in nearly dead, it is slower than being on foot. This is consistent with realism. If an arrow is in the leg of a horse, it probably will lose the will run. I would suggest significant speed decreases to occur only when the horse's health was below 30% to avoid hurting other horse classes too significantly.
Option 2: Exhaustion for horses. Limit the amount of time that a horse can remain in motion. You could do a bar much like the drowning mechanic that causes the horses to keel over dead from exhaustion in the final 2 minutes of a match. This will enable all cavalry to enjoy the early game dominance and killing off stragglers like they always do, while restoring the flow of the game. This choice lacks realism though, because most horses would not die of exhaustion after a few minutes in motion.
Option 3: Drastically decrease mounted crossbow accuracy.
If you support, or do not support nerfing horse crossbowmen, please post below expressing your support or concerns.
If you agree with anything I said and would wish to elaborate more, please post.
If you have any other suggestions as to what could fix the problem, please post.
Thanks for reading! -TugBoat
