Horses - how to improve difficulty

[Leshma]

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.

Link or gtfo?

[Trikipum]

yea but that takes skill( lot of that guy is profesional) and lot of trening time

Oh man you are just too fun. Never been more "skilled" riders than warriors who started training for the thing maybe at 5 yo....

[Kryser]

I own 2 horses, they are giant retarded dogs. Horses are very intimidating and fun at the same time. They spook easily and are afraid of shadows. But respond well to commands when trained with their rider. Telling your horse commands to "stop" will make him stop. Or make a smacking noise to make him gallop.

You could implement a series of commands to "walk" "gate" and "gallop"
Also horses have no way the maneuverability that the in game horses do, reduce maneuver, because in reality you would be thrown from your horse going those speeds and turning so freaking fast.

[Yachdiel]

Alot the suggestions in this thread sound absurd and completely disregard the mechanics of the game

"Make it so I can pick people up on cav, and that I have to get off my horse and clean his horseshoe"

Horse should slow down more when they bump, they should also move more like infantry and not like motorcycles when slowed down, that mechanic is in Mount and Blade 2, but I don't think its possible here.
I just simply think that maneuverability should be more influenced by speed same with weapon damage off horseback. That way cavalry charges are the main mechanic of the class, and those who wish to swerve around infantry and engage are more left to specialist classes like Horse Archers and Heavy Infantry on Cavalry.

I also think only spear bracing (a suggested animation where one crouches and points their spear) should rear a horse, that way cavalry don't run around and only look for unwitting people.

[Trikipum]

Failed example with the quarter horse video at the rodeo.  Quarter horses are completely different from a heavy war horse.  It's like comparing a Porsche with a truck.

Are you aware that all these kind of "quarter" horses are descendant of real arabian horses and more?. We already have the granfathers of those horses ingame...

[polkafranzi]

I think the best thing the devs can do for us will be completely change horse models to make them much less dangerous, it's the only way ranged and inf players will be satisfied.  Obviously horses should be useless like they were in the medieval period, so I suggest we change the current beasts for something a little more...on the safer side. At the moment we have this:

(click to show/hide)

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but i'd like to see:

(click to show/hide)

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maybe finally it would be "balanced"?  No more riding skill, the players athletics could determine the speed and manouvere (max 5kmh and 3-point turn capability, seatbelt mandatory).

QQ

[OpenPalm]

To people saying that horse controls are unrealistic:  So is horses running into trees.  No horse is ever going to be spurred by a person into running into a tree.  Why not give horses auto-dodging of obstacles, like would be realistic?  Oh, because that would be silly.  Horse controls are fine.

[LordBerenger]

I think the best thing the devs can do for us will be completely change horse models to make them much less dangerous, it's the only way ranged and inf players will be satisfied.  Obviously horses should be useless like they were in the medieval period, so I suggest we change the current beasts for something a little more...on the safer side. At the moment we have this:

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

but i'd like to see:

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

maybe finally it would be "balanced"?  No more riding skill, the players athletics could determine the speed and manouvere (max 5kmh and 3-point turn capability, seatbelt mandatory).

QQ

OMG IMPLEMENT IT NOW! FUCKING BADASS! Spawnkilling with these beasts.

[Havoco]

Just make it a medieval version of tribes:ascend. Do it

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

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.

For everyone else - what changes could be done to increase the player skill needed to ride a horse? Right now, it's W to accelerate, S to decelerate. Therefore, it's more like a motorbike than a horse. Maybe someone who has done real riding has some insight how we could translate rider skill into a game mechanic? Riding should be difficulty in itself, just as flying a plane in a game would be. Riding needs more nuances.

Anyone got some ideas.

Add 3-5 levels of speed as:

Trott
Canter
Gallop

And you set and forget each one, each level results in a lowering of manoeuvre but a fixed speed increase. Add a new stat to horses, acceleration. It dictates how fast a horse can move through the different levels of speed.

Add stamina for horses, if you gallop continuously the horses should shit a brick after say 2min (yeah I know it's not realistic). It adds a level of management that may result in a different kind of cav player, manoeuvring.

Add an icon to the bottom left that shows what the horses is doing ie canter or gallop

Add side stepping, perhaps q&e that allows the horse to step directly left or right when still or trotting.

Take away horses rearing and instead add an eject button~!~ Depending on encumbrance you can leap off the horse at different levels and take a small amount of damage, would be great if you could leap off and tackle people.

Buff the shit out of horse bump but make it only work at a gallop so bellow gallop you only bump them aside like a kick or stun them like a punch with some of the lowest speeds.

If cav slam into an object the player should be dismounted and the horse should take off forcing them to whistle for the horse.

That's all I can think of.

[engurrand]

I think the best thing the devs can do for us will be completely change horse models to make them much less dangerous, it's the only way ranged and inf players will be satisfied.  Obviously horses should be useless like they were in the medieval period, so I suggest we change the current beasts for something a little more...on the safer side. At the moment we have this:

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

but i'd like to see:

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

maybe finally it would be "balanced"?  No more riding skill, the players athletics could determine the speed and manouvere (max 5kmh and 3-point turn capability, seatbelt mandatory).

QQ

This guy is a professional...

[Vkvkvk]

lemmy winks said horses arent as maneuverable as this game.... are you kidding me lol.. they are way more maneuverable and faster than this game man lol

here is your proof.. take a good look and slap yourself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awR1zuyfXwo&feature=related

Only problem with this video is that not only are the horses protected to specifically do maneuvers like that, the terrain is also perfect for them to do such maneuver. So unless we fight in a fucking horse racing map, horses won't have the pleasure of not breaking their ankles on shitty terrains and no ankle protections, not to mention that these guys aren't sporting gear weighting 50+ lbs around.

[Trikipum]

Seeing the amount of silly recomendations i can say most of people posting here never got a horse, at least no in crpg. Many of these suggestions are so stupid i wont even comment on them, just will add my own stupid tip to improve the horse experience.
You should add a new kind of ammo for both xbows and bows. HTEA. That is. Horse Tracking Explosive Ammo. The name its self explanatory and my suggestion makes as much sense as 90% of what im seeing here. Just will say that adding a delay to the horse is like the worst thing you would ever do. People doesnt seem to realize that you have to be hard on your horse's brake before turning, that is for any horse. You turn shit at high speeds, and that is for any horse also. Its just that the arabian horse brakes and acelerates so fast you may not notice it if you are a brainless infantry player (not saying inf is for brainless, just that most brainless seem playing it). Guys bitching so much are usually that kind of inf player that charges straight in a line with 0 awareness and gets spanked by all the sides. You dont see many archers bitching about. Why?. Good archers are used to dodge horse charges and can literally "bullfight" a horse rider for minutes. Indeed, ill say that in 1vs1 with both players awareness, only 1h hasnt an edge over the horse. Rest of classes are likely to kill the horse if manned by the right person.

[Leesin]

chadz seems to think that making it so "horses require more player skill" isn't balancing or a nerf, when it is, thus the mature guy he is, he edited my main post which said why it's individual builds that need nerfing on horseback, not how horses work themselves, considering you pay a fuck load of upkeep for a horse that can be downed by a couple of well placed arrows. ( Which are plentifully spammed around the map in most matches )

Why add a mini game to even get the horse moving properly when it's already easy to down a horse if your teams archers do not suffer from tunnel vision. Cav are highly vulnerable to ranged and polearms, it's players that need to be more aware of what's going on behind them rather than horses requiring more player skill, most people I see killed by lancers are just overly focused on one target in one direction. Half of them are the beginning of a map before the main engagement has even happened, because they're not looking anywhere but forward as they sprint to the battle, that's just feeding the lancers.

 Maybe Arabian warhorse and some loomed horses need balancing in whatever way you wish, but other than that, some kind of mechanic making it a challenge to even move the horse around is just going to eventually narrow down the different cav classes, leaving mostly just lancers, rather than the cav builds that require alot more thinking and maneuvering.

At the end of the day, I would place money on that even if some kind of minigame control for the horses was to be added, you'd still have a shit ton of whine and no cheese to go with it.

[bruce]

About horse movement:
- Alternative controls are bad, really, because you only have your fingers with which you have to both ride and attack, you can't control anything over your computer with your legs, thighs and such. Infantry also has counterstrike movement controls... eh.

- If you want more sensible movement, then less maneuver (for arabians and stuff, too, they get more maneuver then the fast horse line gets speed, and ride like go-karts), more speed (possibly a triggerable "charge"?). Significantly less maneuver at high speeds then now, also slower decelerating.

- Terrain (uneven, obstacles) should have more impact. Oberyn had a good suggestion about stakes and such doing damage.


About generic balance stuff:
- Running into chambered spears should cause damage.

- All variants of unarmoured horse (especially heirloomed ones) have too much HP, so charging into a spear / pike / getting shot up is not penalized as much as it should be. Unarmoured horses being able to turn and ride away after a pike/spear stab should not be the norm.

About horses charging:
This suggestion is good:

" give them a charge mode with cooldown,   having a high maneuverability penalty but a great speed bonus whilst their basic speed is nerfed greatly
 (example: basic courser speed 40, maneuver 41;  charging speed 50,  maneuver 31)
-make their corpses crush trough and in return make them a lot more fragile vs anti-cav weapons aaaand make the rider take a high amount of damage."

Generally speaking, if you want horse charge to become something nasty and counterable with pikes/spears (or well placed ranged) but not with just any random weapon, then horse corpses should do damage; in that way, without support weapons you will get hurt. However, if they get the ability to charge properly the "ninja" capabilities have to go down to compensate, naturally.