Horses - how to improve difficulty

[EyeBeat]

Since xbow cav are so UP... We should make it so that if a xbow cav shoots another cav it automatically rears that horse.  Regular infantry xbows cant do this though.... only xbows used on cav.

Xbow cav needs a huge buff.

[Joker86]

Actually, you were terrible and got owned by literally any other cav. Just because you played like a massive pussy doesn't make the class OP, no more than Agor being a bundle of sticks camper makes crossbows OP.

What do you know about me being cav? That's quite some time ago... 

[Ealoseum]

To improve cav vs cav you could slower the lance hit, so it will cost some time for a newbie to get used to timing and ofc the cav pros will have an advantage.

[EyeBeat]

Another idea to buff xbow cav is to make it so that battles last longer.

Make it so they last like 12 minutes.  And the flags spawn in the last 1:30.

That seems about right.

[_Tak_]

Make couched lance break when hit against a shield.
With high wpf, it would not break with the first couch.
Same with against armored horses or tincans, but with lower chance to break.

- That would lower the use of trolololo couched lance.

What about couch into a peasant? That breaks the lance too? All weapons should break to make it more realistic , also lance breaking won't do well on Cav duel.

To improve cav vs cav you could slower the lance hit, so it will cost some time for a newbie to get used to timing and ofc the cav pros will have an advantage.

Heavy lance got nerf pretty bad, keep getting nerf after nerf, in the future it might become 25 pierce

[Gurnisson]

Heavy lance got nerf pretty bad, keep getting nerf after nerf, in the future it might become 25 pierce

It got slower which made it easier to time and gave it increased speed bonus. Horrible 'nerf' right there, right?

[Joker86]

For those that _still_ haven't gotten it - it's not about balancing cav vs other classes, it's about balancing cav vs cav, skill wise - giving cavalry players a similar learning curve as, for example infantry. Giving cavalry fine nuances that players can use to their advantage and shine out when compared to other, less skillful/experienced players. Giving cav techniques to use that are hard, if not impossible to master.

It's not about cav being OP or UP.

I have no doubt this will once again just be ignored anyway.

Well, you wrote in your opening post

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.

which can also be summed up as "playing cav needs to be more difficult -> cav nerf". This is why people (and me included) unwittingly also referred to OP or UP.


But if you want something to increase skill: how about limiting the stab like the couch? You are able to chamber your stab only for some time, then the dot gets red and you need to wait. A quick series of blocking and chambering will be possible, but only for a few seconds, then you need to recover.

And make the "time damage curve" of the stab more extreme. Which means there is a tiny time window after chambering the stab where the damage is the highest. Everything before and after this time window lowers the damage drastically.

I don't know if thos changes can be apllied for the other classes like 1hd (same limitation) and Xbow (aiming), but you could think about it. It doesn't work for HAs, because they are limited in time with the bow mechanic anyway. Stopping the constant draw-cancel-draw-cancel behaviour would be nice, but it would actually come close to a stamina mechanic, so that I wouldn't do it.

Edit: but increase the stab angle again.

[Torben]

(click to show/hide)

Well, you wrote in your opening post

which can also be summed up as "playing cav needs to be more difficult -> cav nerf". This is why people (and me included) unwittingly also referred to OP or UP.


But if you want something to increase skill: how about limiting the stab like the couch? You are able to chamber your stab only for some time, then the dot gets red and you need to wait. A quick series of blocking and chambering will be possible, but only for a few seconds, then you need to recover.

And make the "time damage curve" of the stab more extreme. Which means there is a tiny time window after chambering the stab where the damage is the highest. Everything before and after this time window lowers the damage drastically.

I don't know if thos changes can be apllied for the other classes like 1hd (same limitation) and Xbow (aiming), but you could think about it. It doesn't work for HAs, because they are limited in time with the bow mechanic anyway. Stopping the constant draw-cancel-draw-cancel behaviour would be nice, but it would actually come close to a stamina mechanic, so that I wouldn't do it.

Edit: but increase the stab angle again.

dont like the idea of timelimits on chambering,  it takes away a lot of combat potential,  makes everything more predictable,  linear and less skill considering dancing.  the skill needed for the timing is a lot less interessting that that of the dance.

[bruce]

The thing which would make cav fights fun and interesting again is the old lancing angles.

Horse collisions doing damage would also be an interesting mechanic to get rid of "bumper car gameplay" where you try to block the horseman with your own horse - although 1h cavalry, or cavalry with a 1h as sidearm, would probably hate this.

Lower block "bubbles" from manual block / shield block on horseback.

That and perhaps nerfing maneuver (sorry, guys), perhaps with an increase to speed of "agile-line horses", because as it is, it is very easy to avoid other cavarlymen attacking (and in general correct errors), and the more maneuverable horse, the easier to accelerate away from a slash (especially the laughably slow 2h slashes), or get out of the very limited lance angles.

[_Tak_]

That and perhaps nerfing maneuver (sorry, guys)

in recent patch Cmp just nerf the horse's maneuver and speed, but he just didn't mention it in the log

Found and fixed. Should also fix weird behavior with "regular" blocks.

Will be applied after a server restart later today, along with other fixes (people flying, duel offers broken...).

[cmp]

in recent patch Cmp just nerf the horse's maneuver and speed, but he just didn't mention it in the log

Wrong, it was brought back to the values the servers had been running for months before the move. That's not a nerf, it's a fix.

[Joker86]

dont like the idea of timelimits on chambering,  it takes away a lot of combat potential,  makes everything more predictable,  linear and less skill considering dancing.  the skill needed for the timing is a lot less interessting that that of the dance.

Why? The dancing would become more difficult, because next to positioning yourself and the enemy the right way now you also need to do it in the right time.

Another idea could be that the speed you are riding with influences damage (not only speed bonus), weapon speed and perhaps even weapon reach. Though I don't know how exactly. Should a high riding speed make the weapon faster? That way it will be more difficult to hit targets at full speed. It could have improved damage. On the other hand slow speed makes it easier to hit targets, and you are able to lean out of the saddle more so that your reach is increased. With high speed you need to hold fast in your saddle and are not able to lean to a side that much. That way you would have the "slow" horse combat which is suited more for actual fighting and duels, while the high horse speed is like some kind of low lever air attack: it's fast, well aimed, hits you hard and is gone before you know what happened. It would be the more difficult, but also the more rewarding style.

Cav duels could also be interesting, because with the higher range or slower speed you have better chances to defeat a player who rides at you at full speed. But if you miss... 

[Tydeus]

Based somewhat on my previous post:

When couching, have the lance bob up and down and side to side, the faster you're riding, the more uncontrollable it becomes. Possibly have it slowly drag to the ground as well. Think CS 1.6 and how you would go about controlling the spray. Maybe take it a step farther, and carry this over to lance thrusting, too.

My only hesitation with this, is that it would ultimately be a gimmick in that the size of hit boxes and active areas of the lance, would render the whole thing pointless. I have no doubt that you guys could come up with some additional mechanic changes that would make this great, I'm just not sure how much effort it might take to get it working really well.

[SixThumbs]

For cav vs cav fighting maybe you could allow weapons like the spear, war spear, double-sided lance to have the old lancing angles and for the actual lances have it so that if you lance too far out going at speed you end up dropping the lance from the extreme angle if it makes contact.

I would like to see a general increase in cavalry attack speed in general. It bothers me immensely when I ignore a point blank, non-moving, lance stab because it looks so slow but ends up dealing a worrying amount of damage.

Edit: Actually, if you give lancers the old angles I'll lose my only real advantage as 2h cav vs lance cav which is to either force a rear or slash at them moving perpendicular to them (which has actually netted me a fair amount of kills).

[dynamike]

For those that _still_ haven't gotten it - it's not about balancing cav vs other classes, it's about balancing cav vs cav, skill wise - giving cavalry players a similar learning curve as, for example infantry. Giving cavalry fine nuances that players can use to their advantage and shine out when compared to other, less skillful/experienced players. Giving cav techniques to use that are hard, if not impossible to master.

It's not about cav being OP or UP.

I have no doubt this will once again just be ignored anyway.

Edit: there were some very interesting ideas in this thread, though, some that we have already come up with ourselves, and some new ones as well.

I don't think a cav vs cav learning curve is a problem. As with other classes there is a clear difference between an amateur cav player and his repertoire and abilities in combat against other cav and a veteran. Awareness and timing are the most critical factors, combined with horse maneuvering and acceleration/deceleration to beat other cav in a dogfight style manner. This includes a similar learning curve as other classes have. Multiply that if not playing lancer, but 1 or 2 hand cav, as it is more difficult to master.

Where cav is currently strong is against infantry, and then usually only against unaware, uncoordinated or peasant infantry. But, we still do have the high cost required to play cav as a balance argument for that and for an aware group of versatile fighters it is no problem to counter.

I appreciate what you devs are trying to do here, but I love to play cav and I'd hate to see an unnecessary or artificial mechanic like a "tap keys to move horse legs" minigame implemented.