Horses - how to improve difficulty

[Teeth]

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You really should try Two Worlds II if you haven't already.

Btw. about riding a bike argument, that shitty MMOTPS wannabe game called APB is controlled in a same way as most driving simulators. You can play them with W,A,S,D as well. However APB driving model is probably the worst I've ever had the pleasure to try. And similar game like GTA IV has quite decent driving model. You know why?

Because it has better physics model. No additional controls, just better physics. If you want additional controls you need to make your game for different controller, not for keyboard and mouse. Steering with mouse works well in L4S but in Warband you need free aim for weapons...

W,S,A,D is the best keyboard has to offer. Additional controls only complicate things. Work on physics model instead and things will be a lot more different, both for cav and inf.

Also fixed four attack and block directions aren't enough for me anymore. I want 360 degree combat

But horsies can't drift. What would this improved physics model, which is completely unattainable, effectively add to the horseriding mechanics in the game?

[Overdriven]

melee no shield: 4 attacks, 4 blocks, 4 movement directions
cav lancer: 1 attack, 4 blocks (of which only one is mostly used, if ever), 4 movement directions

???

Melee with a pike/longspear/ashwood pike. 1h cav exist as well. It's not that clear cut. But each class is relatively the same in attack directions and movement directions.

[Thomek]

Of course over a lot of that time the balance paradigm was completely different and cavalry was a less significant problem.  In the cycle of balance if you continually moan about anything long enough it will probably come round to getting nerfed eventually. This doesn't mean you were right when you moaned and bitched for years. 

I don't understand why cavalry shouldn't be allowed to perform in anyway it likes, why should they be forced to operate in large groups any more than infantry or ranged should?  If a melee fighter wants to run around and flank enemies, take their targets at unaware and get kills by surprise attack rather than coordinated group work why shouldn't cavalry? 

If cavalry chooses to work in a coordinated group then they should be rewarded for it the same as infantry is, this doesn't mean they should be forced into it however.

I understand your point, and I agree with you..  Don't misunderstand me.
An example of what I suggest is that a rider wanting to maximize his damage would have to ride full speed, and have very little maneuverability at that speed.
Thus a charge would be a real commitment to him, spelling death or victory depending on his timing. There would be no last moment pull out. (like now)

I think such a change would "help encourage" teamwork for cavalry players, as it would not be so easy to get out of sticky situations.. The potential for teamwork is already there for cav players, they just don't use it very much because "It's so hard do coordinate". The real reason is because its not at all necessary to get plenty of kills.

[Joker86]

Honestly, I don't think that you can or should change a lot concerning cavalry.

Okay, the common suggestions with horses taking damage when hitting solid objects (just let them take damage according to the amount and percentage of the reduction of speed), riders falling off the horse when taking enough damage with a single hit and dead horses still causing bump damage (not sure about this one, actually) could be thought of, no question.

But I think the problem of cavalry is a totally different one.

Currently I play as a piker, and thus I concentrate on protecting my team from cavalry. If you do so and concentrate on the fight of your team vs. enemy cavalry, you will soon become really depressed, because the fight goes only into one direction: enemy cavalry fights your team, and your team does shit against that. They don't even protect themselves.

I say that 90% of all players on the servers behave like there was no cavalry at all. They are the [W]-pressing, mindless rambo-lemming autowalkers which every cavalry player can kill at least five each round. They don't look around, they don't try to establish a protection screen of pikemen and spearmen at the flanks and the back of the formation (or to stay inside of it), and the archers don't give a shit about horses riding around. Go, play a pikeman, try to protect teammates from enemy cavalry, and look how you will fail. Big time. Royally. You have no chance to save those lemmings at all.

This is why I think that cavalry is actually already underpowered (horse durability, upkeep, etc.), but the fail of the infantry (including archers) makes them still OP. There is no nerf you can apply to a horse that would even out things properly, because most of the time the horses are not attacked anyway!

That's why I say that you shouldn't mess around with basic game elements. Better try to improve the awareness of players and their motivation to fight cavalry first. There are only two classes which are more or less defenseless against (melee)cavalry: 1hd+ shield and maulers. Every other class, if aware of the horseman, has pretty good chances to kill the cavalry instead of the other way round. Twohanders and polearm users can stab the horse, ranged players can shoot it. That's why it is incredibly risky to attack a player who is aware. If almost all players would be constantly aware of cavalry, you would suddenly need the skill you want to have as condition for playing cavalry, and you don't need to screw around with basic game mechanics.

P.S.: I have no clue how to improve awareness of those imbecils who get killed by cav. Adding a special reward for killing horses or implementing some kind of commander system with rewards for carrying out orders could be the first step into the right direction.

[Lepintoi]

I want cavalry to be able to carry me on a horse and give me a lift...
Like in the mooovies

For example: a horse archer that picks up a 2h or shielder and drops em off right in the melee or closer to the flag...

[Tomas]

Sorry not managed to read everything but here's what I suggest

1)  Add horse gears with w and s to switch between the gears.  Each gear represents a set speed for all horses

Gears:
- Stopped
- Walk
- Trot
- Canter
- Sprint

EDIT: To actually switch gears you have to hold w for a second.  Tapping it briefly will instead give you a seconds slightly increased speed to catch up with team mates.  Same with s

Whilst sprinting horses move at their actual top speed however horses can only sprint for a set amount of time depending on their stamina (a new horse stat)

When moving between the lower gears their is a set time that the horse takes to accelerate to the new set speed.  When moving into a sprint that time depends on the horses maneuverability instead

Turning remains as it is now but a delay could be nice.

2) All horses should have a chance to rear when charging into a group of people.  This percentage depends on the horse with it being lower for the more heavily armoured horses.  The percentage should be multiplied by the number of infantry in close proximity to the person being hit, whilst the percentage should be divided by the number of horses in close proximity to the horse as it hits the person.

Basically, if you want to charge a group of people then you'll want to team up with other riders and have heavy horses.  The more people you want to charge, the more cav and the heavier the horses you will want.

3) Dead horses still exist for an extra second or two after dying so that Spears take their rightful places as proper anti cav weapons that rear horses whilst 2Handers and ranged players who point blank shoot the horse will get knocked down.  Skill full infantry/ranged who step to the side as the horse passes will still be able to take the horse down

4)  Chance for lance to break if you do more than X damage where X is so high that you have to be couching/lancing an oncoming opponents for it to trigger. 

The result is that cav have to think when to lance/couch enemies instead of just blindly lancing everything in sight

5)  Horses take bump damage according to their armour and the amount of bump damage they dealt.  So if a horse deals 20 bump damage to a player, then the horse takes 20 bump damage itself.  Of course a heavily armoured horse will soak all of this up and not notice. 

Again the result is that Cav have to think when to bump and when not to bump and there is a greater difference between light and heavy Cav.

[Thomek]

awareness bla bla bla..

It's not gonna happen UNLESS:

* Make cav charges MORE deadly for inf, more risky for cav, and more predictable.

If the team knows that if they don't deal with the cav charge, they loose, something will happen to teamplay.

Now it's more of an uncatchable swarm of mosquitos hacking away at the fringes of the battle. Is an infantry man gonna go around running after cav? Infantry can't attack cav, they are too fast. The only defense is passive and that's sticking together.


*Edit, lots of great suggestions from Tomas above..

[Overdriven]

It's not gonna happen UNLESS:

* Make cav charges MORE deadly for inf, more risky for cav, and more predictable.

If the team knows that if they don't deal with the cav charge, they loose, something will happen to teamplay.

Now it's more of an uncatchable swarm of mosquitos hacking away at the fringes of the battle. Is an infantry man gonna go around running after cav? Infantry can't attack cav, they are too fast. The only defense is passive and that's sticking together.


*Edit, lots of great suggestions from Tomas above..

But cav charges are impossible to organise without a clan on TS leading the way. Otherwise it just never happenes. Changing the way horses act isn't going to make a damn difference to the organisational abilities of most players. That needs a proper 'squad' system ect more than the battalion system we currently have. Otherwise changing horses to suit big charges will just be wasted.

[gazda]

1. add a psychology effects to the game (horses and infantry)

examples:
- low riding skill of a rider would cause horse to sometime ignore riders commands in front of a danger (suicide charge into pikes)
- when 3+ horses charge infantry, infantry can be scared and players would have a chance to loose control temporarily over their characters

2. add what prinze_karl said

currently when we hit the wall we have that cheap animation of rearing, which i think is there to show that horse wouldnt ride itself into wall - hence it rears on impact

3. when on very slow speed or when standing still add biting enemy in front and kicking enemy in the back that attacks the horse (horse would do it on its own)

4. use this VIDEO as a reference to horse speed and maneuver not what we have right now ingame

5. remove ctrl+j when riding fast, make it only useable when horse stands still

6. i would say old lance angle would improve skill of lancer vs lancer but it would be too harsh for 1h cav i guess (when it was that lancers where anti cav and 1h anti inf)

7. make rider able to fall of his saddle, when recieving a heavy blow ala Deluge mod

+

I suggested spurring stamina similar to Red Dead Redemption, so riders have to choose when to get their horse to go fast and more timing is involved.  Too much forceful spurring could kill the horse or damage it badly.


Also make hitting objects take damage, so steering and aiming takes more skill ;)

That is how should horse riding be in warband, everything else in this thread is pure shit.

Only things that remain to be questioned are ,

are those things doable? and in what meassure? (fully , partially, slobby, not at all)
how long would it take? do we have time? do we have will to do it?

[Casimir]

I understand your point, and I agree with you..  Don't misunderstand me.
An example of what I suggest is that a rider wanting to maximize his damage would have to ride full speed, and have very little maneuverability at that speed.
Thus a charge would be a real commitment to him, spelling death or victory depending on his timing. There would be no last moment pull out. (like now)

I think such a change would "help encourage" teamwork for cavalry players, as it would not be so easy to get out of sticky situations.. The potential for teamwork is already there for cav players, they just don't use it very much because "It's so hard do coordinate". The real reason is because its not at all necessary to get plenty of kills.

Your statement just made a good entrance to my general post

[polkafranzi]

Anyone got some ideas.

Blanket ban NA?

[Mr_Oujamaflip]

I think the biggest issue with Cavalry at the moment is sound. I'd like to think myself pretty aware of what's going on and of course I occasionally get shanked in the back by a horse but the thing that gets me is that I can't hear them. I spend so much time looking around and making sure I'm not getting attacked that when I'm doing something else like fighting someone or trying to dodge some arrows I feel I should be able to hear a 2 ton medieval tank on approach when really I only hear it after he's gone and stabbed me.

If the game had a decent sound system with proper locational audio I don't think the awareness would be a problem and then the ninja-cavving would fix itself and the cavalry would then need to work together to score some kills just like the infantry do now.

Seriously, leave the ninjaing to the ninjas, not the cav.

[Havoco]

Add an extra button for low angle attack animations (regarding attacking infantry with low swings or stabs. Think of it as "leaning in to the attack"

[gazda]

another thing would be forcing cooperation, this wouldnt just apply to cav, but all classes

you see, i once suggested skill bonuses that you get when you are in close formation with teammates, you gave us only shield skill bonus for strat.
I say, generally nerf everything in crpg and make these close proximity bonuses

sry if im straying from the topic too much

[Beauchamp]

imo cav needs skill even now - there is a huge difference between guys like tommy and others that are happy to even approach 1:1 k:d when on horse.  and the true skill is to move with your horse on the battlefield to your biggest advantage - guessing where to go and when. game mechanics for moving horse itself anywhere to desired place are super easy - and this is imo great and its exactly how it should be.

i don't think that making "moving the horse difficult" is a good way to improve the gameplay. it feels so natural now that i can't imagine any major changes to horse riding (except maybe a few minor ones mentioned like horses react on environment, fall damage, stakes and maybe some others i haven't read) that would really lead to better gaming experience.

the only problem with cav i see is there are to many of them (but its a completely different problem).