I think you're greatly oversimplifying cavalry, and undermining infantry's own responsibility. "i'm not retarded, nor is all my single minded teammates who can't be bothered to use a pike, or run in a group with a pikeman".
one pike, one long spear, one pitch fork, and a horse is nullified. 2 1h'ers standing next to each other, first guy gets hit, 2nd guy takes out the rider or the horse. Seems really overpowered to me.
I'm not just saying not only are cavalry not overpowered, nothing in the game is overpowered. Cavalry is always going to pick apart a team of rambo's who run around on their own. Cavalry is pretty much useless whenever infantry is organized into semi-formed groups with lancers/pikemen in the group (not to mention throwers or other ranged). A couple throwers in a group and I'm basically cut off from that section of the map.
Stop blaming everyone else, and take some responsibility for your actions. Cavalry can easily be countered, do you have the intelligence and organizational skills to do so? That's the real issue.
Almost every nerf or QQ thread boils down to people not wanting to use the tactics or equipment to counter what they're whining about. God forbid I should have to change my play style to counter another class, that's blasphemy.
I think you're oversimplifying how exactly cavalry can be countered. I mean, I understand that the game isn't based around 1vs1 fighting, but your suggestion to counter one player riding a horse is to have more players next to you. Yeah, well, one player on multiple players is always stacked on the side with more players' favor. In your 1hander example, though, the threshold for the attention and diligence required is proportionally much higher on the side with
more players than it would be in almost any other case. On top of which, if a shielder is alone, he shouldn't have a chance against a cavalry? He
has to rely on having another player with him or he
has to "be bothered" to carry a weapon he's not spec'd into or else or the cav player should have absolute dominion of him and automatically win? I'm personally not a fan of the "hard counters" or the rock-paper-scissor approach to balance, but I suppose there have to be some ways that certain specs are limited. It's just unfortunate that cavalry have such limited and specific counters.
You say that cavalry is useless when infantry is organized. Yes. A player charging into an organized group is going to lose (in this case the cavalry player), but that's essentially the same thing you're saying about the "rambo's who run around on their own." The difference is that the rambo (infantry) players don't require such specific equipment or playstyles to defeat when compared with a horseman. They're also far easier to avoid. But it's okay for the cav player to run around on
his own and be less susceptible to predatory playstyles while being harder to deal with unless you're specifically prepared? That is an egregious double standard: Infantry has to organize to succeed, but cavalry does not.
I think we can agree that being aware is the way to defeat cavalry. But on the converse side of that: cavalry is entirely dependent on being an exploitive playstyle. It's not that it's overpowered, it's that it can take advantage of its ideal conditions so easily, more easily than any other playstyle. The sheer speed at which they can appear means that they're much harder to pay attention to or even notice before it's too late than other classes. They have
more than one way to kill a player without allowing them to block. They don't have to engage if they don't want to, but they base their playstyle around engaging when other players don't want them to. If it's not unbalanced, it's certainly unfair.
Now for a more facetious response:You have to have intelligence to beat cavalry, but cavalry can just wait until you're occupied and attack you without opposition. Yeah, guys, be intelligent! Take responsibility and change your class to succeed! In other words, roll cav.
