Horses - how to improve difficulty

[Lord_Panos]

beer i remember you talking shit abbout GK,lobbying for cav nerf,calling them names and now when you are cav,noob lancer you defend it...
You said cav is OP.

I still talk shit about gk you moron,but not because they kill me,most of them are pretty good damn lancers (Kerrigan,Chagan,Garrus) but the bad thing with them is that they spawnarape, and that cause a lot of infamy to lancers,mediocre 2handers can easily oppose lancers with the lolstab.

The only things that are op are bump/lance/slash and the goddamn arabian.

Now keep qqing ex-2h hero. 

A lot of you believe that cav class is easy,just because you saw some ppl playing it good,it does not mean that it`s easy mode.Give to a new player a 2h sword with an agi build and I bet all my looms that he will manage 3 kills at least in 1 map,but,give to a new player a courser to ride and I bet that one of these things will happen.

A)his horse gets killed by the range spam and then he dies
B)he does a frontal attack to a 2h/pike/L.Spear

I see a lot of you whine, that cavalry backstabs and shit,well it`s not my fault that you are fucking def and that your awarness level is equal to a downnie.

You are whining for the wrong class to be nerfed IMO.

Edit for grammar correction.

[Artyem]

The point of this thread isn't to bitch about how over powered or under powered riding is, and it certainly isn't about how overpowered or underpowered two handers are.  So please do us all a favor and fuck off so the actual discussion can continue. Thanks.

So we were discussing horses yesterday, and were trying to come up with ideas how to change horses in general. Note - this is in no way a balance thread, so if you think horses are OP or UP, and feel you have to communicate this, please, gtfo.

[Casimir]

buff 2h cav.

[Cicero]

Couch needs to be nerfed , it is so easy to kill someone atm , just one click and in real life couch is made for only one time use.Just watch some movies or watch in real life ; u can't hold lance after you couch someone , with that speed and hit , its not possible to hold your lance still.Even normal hit its hard.

Also about horse speed , What about putting some penalty if you ride with armour , i mean with tincan and if you gonna try to ride a destrier those horses are a living thing its need to be have some penalty.

What about making an effect about accelaration maybe
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this thing at rider's shoulder called "whip"  can be used for extra speed.

For free horse whistle , if you think about horses are the most loyal animal , those horses which their owner died in battle must be hard to use , i mean they should resist ?

[Slamz]

The real problem with cavalry in this game isn't the horses themselves, but the unnatural weaknesses granted to their targets.

Horses are too quiet in the base mod.  Really it would be nice if every sound in the game was reduced by 50% except for horses.  Coursers are particularly bad about this because their speed is so high that by the time you hear them, you're dead, lanced in the back by an opponent you didn't have time to see or hear.  Coursers are greatly preferred over the armored horses because being so fast that nobody hears you coming is way more effective than having a horse with armor.  And most people probably don't have surround sound so they can't really hear where the horses are coming from.

I actually think that what we need is "horse radar" -- something to make up for the inherent audio weakness of playing a game versus being there in real life.

Horses do take a reasonable amount of skill already in the sense that lining up a moving target and hitting him isn't as easy as it looks.

The problem is that anyone on foot is way too easily caught by surprise because Warband has "stealth horses".

[engurrand]

chadz,

To do horses from scratch lets consider something in terms of making it "nuanced" and difficult.

Horse are separate entities IRL, they are their own creatures.

Now with that in mind consider what a game will try to do...

Extend some of those "aspects" of a IRL into the game world so that they can be used as a play style..
SO you then have the graphics, animations, mechanics and all that, and it ties into the game play.

One of the prime functions of the horse is that it is large, faster than a man, and has enough mass and momentum to impact a body with enough force to cause damage / discordance. These are the core mechanics we see in c-rpg.

Now to consider making horses from scratch and make it more difficult we might want to require, as it seems to be you are suggesting, that the player would need to put more attention into riding the horse in order to be at the top tier of effectiveness. The W S A D acceleration scheme is very simple, where the only real nuance surrounds rotation speed and acceleration.

So, is the goal to try to make it more like "riding a horse IRL", since you were asking for a real riders input... or is it simply to make it more difficult by requiring a the player to manage a larger set of mechanics? Maybe it's a mix... The hardest part here is how to do change mechanics without adding too many features... If we are trying to make it more realistic then we cannot discount the fact that IRL a horse has it's own mind and thus controlling it is a lot different than a machine. Being that computers are machines i think going the route to make horses in a game more difficult via realism is not wise, do you want to make a riding simulator or something else? Or do you want a full riding simulator inside of the rest of your game...

Regardless here is some input to mechanics...

1. Do not have a continuous acceleration range, rather have "levels" of acceleration... Walk, trot, cantor, gallop, charge, ect...
   a. Change rotation (turning speed) and deceleration so that each acceleration level has a unique set of those properties
   b. Make "transitions" between the acceleration levels continuous... so when going from walk to a trot, for example, it doesn't just instantly jump from speed A to speed B but the horse "revs" it self up and take a time period to reach the new speed level.

2. Add more "rearing" type animations where the player cannot control / have limited control of the horse.
    example: Right now in war band we have the rearing animation for the horse... for a second or two you cannot control the horse.... Well make a set of similar                      types of animations, say one where a horse freaks out or something... Rears up and stomps around... example b, example c... you get the point...

3. make horses stronger yet more "reactive" to receiving damage.
   Horse fight... each other, and other animals. Not all horses are aggressive, but some times there are a few who stand out with violent tendencies, and they are not pussies. For example, if you stab a horse in the gut 4 feet deep with a giant pike the horse will be pissed, but it's not going to just fall over and die.. it will probably break the lance and freak the fuck out and then fall over.
Horses need to be more powerful but less maneuverable. 

with that being said... a Horse is not a machine, thus it is hard to make a simulator because the total range of behaviors is not predictable. With an aircraft there is a much stronger domain of predictability, even if large, so all you need to do is attempt to simulate that. The real difficulty in riding a horse is within each horses unique psychology. Trying to increase difficulty based around the real difficulty is going to be very difficult... trying to make "driving a horse" more complex like a flight simulator will just make things annoying.

I personally would keep the simple acceleration and movement scheme and add as little extra shit that the player has to do as possible. Rather make their minds work harder, not their fingers.

[matt2507]

I have not read every post but most of those I've seen absolutely want to change the system of handling the horse.
Outside, I noticed that this is not necessarily the horse that poses problem.

This is firstly their number.

The solution would be to prevent a player back after being dropped, while including the possibility of falling.


The second problem I noticed is the use of the spear that is abusive.

Solution: why not consider the spear as a destructible item ?
Just like the shields. If you have more points in polearm or in "spear point", it will be more resistant.


third problem: Horses with armor.

We can apply the second solution here too.
Assuming that the horse armor is a shield, you would need to shield point use.

One can even go further by transforming the armor as a single object.
The player should then buy the horse and he would be able to purchase armor for this one.
Which would also lower the costs of the repair of the horses but to add to the armor.


Fourth problem and solution: rebalance the statistics of the horses.

The charger is more expensive than the arabian.
The arabian rotates so fast that it exceeds the speed of animation ...
The palfray costs more than the steppe horse.

There are a lot of incoherent thing I think.

And of course, that famous invisible shield of death...
Which is also accompanied by a hitbox the size of a Panzer IV...


The addition of stamina or the time between keystrokes and the animation is not a good thing. The system itself is good and the aim would be to make them less op. The goal is not to make them unplayable, even when it is necessary that it's still a nice class to play.

Currently, this class is the most fun I've had the opportunity to try.
This kind of nerf i would just stop playing this mod has I think.


Sorry for my english.


And

buff 2h cav.

Yeah +1

[Torben]

Wait what? Gimme link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZUfzAFL5Ek

see the sidestepping?

[Leshma]

You lost me here. Why should riding be easy like walking? Riding is not easy.

For gameplay purposes, Teeth. I wasn't talking about RL.

[Teeth]

For gameplay purposes, Teeth. I wasn't talking about RL.

Okay, but isn't the exact point of this entire thread that riding a horse is too easy and that it should be made more difficult and interesting?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZUfzAFL5Ek

see the sidestepping?

Oh, I always thought those were animations for the campaign map. Guess its not, I wonder how they are going to implement sidestepping control wise.

[Leshma]

I'm very sad to see that chadz is again planning nerf based on majority QQing and not on actual facts.

Cavalry player isn't OP by itself but in high numbers they can be OP. However that's developers fault because autobalance doesn't take classes into account, which results in silly round outcomes.

I'm not a piker but I really have no problem handling any cavalry player in this game unless I'm busy and unaware of their presence. You don't need pike to be good against cavalry, you just need balanced build and knowledge of game mechanics.

Problem is that we're often playing 60 players vs 60 players where first team can be consisted of very good players and the other of newbies who's awareness level is very low.

Fix autobalance and you'll fix many issues this mod has. Also allow hybrids again because making pure builds the dumbest choice you ever did. There were no pure builds in medieval age. Every mercenary had some kind of sidearm at least and he was good with it just like he was with pike or zweihander. Only in cRPG there are dedicated greatsword users who suck with one handed weapons and pikes. That never existed.

Also stop supporting imaginary builds, classes of soldiers that never existed in history.

[AvengerC47]

1. Make tapping W increasing speed (and depending on acceleration and to his max speed), not holding it
So it will be like car 'gears' + horse loosing speed when you r not tapping
sth like max 1tap/2sec(or slower) needed at full speed

2. Damage horse when stopped by a wall etc. (or even when bumping)

3. Fix shield forcefield (on horse and on foot)

4. Much less manevurability at full speed

5. horses taking dmg from the rider if hits with sword or make horses block the attack if hitted

6. fix the speed when rides on very small change in ground
its decreasing too much
even little rock that normal horse wouldn't even noticed slows the horse in game because of change from flat ground to little hill

7. ctrl+j kicks ppl in front (like normal kick but stronger)
and k key to kick behind

[Thomek]

ahem.. wanted to change cav for 1 1/2 years and now this! *rrr.. told ya so.. rrr..

Many good suggestions in this thread btw

May I add something unmentioned?

What if the horses themselves would do damage when they fall/get killed?

Imagine a charge with tightly packed cav. Half of them get's killed by long polearms, but when the horses fall at high speed their corpses slide along the ground, creating mayhem among the infantry. Basically, both horse and rider would "Crash" when they die.

But all of these small suggestions are really besides the point. chadz, you need a clear vision of how they will play and work!!!! Then create horsemanship from this vision.

Example:

Imagine this situation:

Cavalry are only really powerful when played together as a team.
Every battle contains at least 1 cavalry charge. Infantry don't stick together because of Ninja-Cav, (like it is now) but because small groups becomes extremely vulnerable to massed cavalry charges.

The cavalry charge should be more of a 1-time nuke to the enemy team. (Maybe more than 1 time if executed well) Relying more on timing and surprise than anything else.

What does it take to get there? Where it actually benefit the players and the team to play cav in a more realistic way? What does it take to make cavalry teamplay more with each other?

There are many factors here.. But I think their speed would need to be generally reduced. At least their acceleration. Perhaps charge damage should be increased, as well as horse HP reduced. Perhaps one should give area based teamplay bonuses. Falling horses should be as dangerous as living horses.. (if one stands in the path.)

IDK, but in any way, one should give this stuff a long hard think.

Somehow: skill requirement, teamplay, risk/reward, fun for the cav, fun for everyone else,  and balance has to hold hands.

[Leshma]

Okay, but isn't the exact point of this entire thread that riding a horse is too easy and that it should be made more difficult and interesting?

Bad approach. Riding isn't the point of lancer cavalry, proficiency with lance is. However chadz thinks that horse is more important tool than lance and therefore made all those changes from native cavalry which is still fun, unlike cRPG cavalry which is dull.

[Teeth]

(click to show/hide)

I'm very sad to see that chadz is again planning nerf based on majority QQing and not on actual facts.

Cavalry player isn't OP by itself but in high numbers they can be OP. However that's developers fault because autobalance doesn't take classes into account, which results in silly round outcomes.

I'm not a piker but I really have no problem handling any cavalry player in this game unless I'm busy and unaware of their presence. You don't need pike to be good against cavalry, you just need balanced build and knowledge of game mechanics.

Problem is that we're often playing 60 players vs 60 players where first team can be consisted of very good players and the other of newbies who's awareness level is very low.

Fix autobalance and you'll fix many issues this mod has. Also allow hybrids again because making pure builds the best choice is the dumbest choice you ever did. There were no pure builds in medieval age. Every mercenary had some kind of sidearm at least and he was good with it just like he was with pike or zweihander. Only in cRPG there are dedicated greatsword users who suck with one handed weapons and pikes. That never existed.

Also stop supporting imaginary builds, classes of soldiers that never existed in history.

You are missing the point of this thread. chadz didn't mention a nerf at all, this is about a complete overhaul of the cav system. It's not about tweaking or balancing the current system, it's about forgetting the current system and brainstorming about a new one.

Bad approach. Riding isn't the point of lancer cavalry, proficiency with lance is. However chadz thinks that horse is more important tool than lance and therefore made all those changes from native cavalry which is still fun, unlike cRPG cavalry which is dull.

Native cavalry is not that fun, and you really can't compare those anymore. The changes to the slot system and ranged power compared to Native would have made cavalry horribly OP if left untouched.

Why is riding not the point of lancer cavalry? It's a pretty big part of what a lancer is. The speed of the horse kills, the rider is just holding a pointy stick which concentrates the forward momentum of the horse.