What is wrong with cav?

[Hobb]

Note: First, I have been playing cav on Crpg for over a year now and i feel that A) Getting kills with cav is very easy. B) Cav is overall balanced, but to be effective cav must have use a playstlye of a kill stealing ninja living in fear of archers and throwers.

Cavalry as of now

-In my experience an average lance or sword cav gets roughly half of their kills from either direct kill steals or easy peasent kills. (players that will have little or no effect in the outcome of the round)
-Although the best cav top the scoreboard, new and otherwise shitty cav usually do really well also, better than they should.
-Cav dont fight other cav at the beggining of the round
1) lance cav head to head is very risky and unpredictable
2) any cav can avoid being killed by blocking and running away
-A large amount of cav are strength based hybrid cav that really give up very little on the ground to still have 5 riding
-Couching is unrealistic and overpowered.
-Killing cpu lag spawners is a cancer to the community. (and ya I do it too)

My Theory

If you changed the mechanics of cav to where they can be just as, if not more effective by attacking infantry head on as they are attacking them in the back, you took away free afk kills, and sped up cav vs cav combat, you would add more skill to the cavalry class and less gay.

The changes

1) get rid of couching from everything but the couch only lances
2) reduce the base charge of all heavy horses except for the plated charger by 25%
3) reduce the base charge of all unarmored horses by 50%

4) add in a "full canter" or "gallop" feature for almost all horses
- by definition this is when a horse opens its stride to increase their speed while giving up maneuverability and causes the rider to experience more vertical movement.
- this gallop (activated by "x") can be triggered while the horse is at full speed
- this feature ends when: a) the horse slows down more than 10%
                                         b) the horse turns more than 45 degrees
- the more speed a horse has, the more the gallop increases their speed
- the faster the horse is going in gallop, the more the maneuverability is reduced
- the more maneuverability the less this stat is reduced by gallop
5) During gallop: (stats based on current values, not ones in previous suggestion) a) All armored horses get 50% more charge b) unarmored horses recieve 25% more charge
6) bumping reduces a horses speed based on their body armor (in both normal and gallop)

6) While a horse is in gallop lances cannot be downblocked (can still be chambered) and side swing weapons have crushthrough at a percentage based on their weight. ex. The morningstar would be like 80% chance

7) add a unenterable barrier in spawn like in rageball goals that automatically kicks people in it after a minute or so



So what should happen is something like this
- the unarmored fast horses (courser, destrier arabian) will have a nice speed bonus in gallop, a restricted turn rate, and a pretty big reduction of speed for running over consecutive bodies.

- Heavy horses (mamlukes, cataphracts, both warhorses) will have a minimal gain in speed bonus while in gallop but a nice charge buff while in gallop.

-all horse will really only be able to stay in gallop while doing straight line charges (similar to couching)

- shitty cav, the "im to afraid to fight you so i will downblock and continue to your spawn" cav will have no choice but to man up and fight since they can no longer downblock your lance
- overall cav v cav is buffed. 

- buff for cav in strat, because of organized cav charges already take place head on

Planned result

The best cav should dominate both other cav and unorganized infantry. Cav team work will be rewarded just like infantry team work




Also some other small unrelated things
- add a slot for horses so that horse arhcers, who desperatly need a buff can have an extra slot of arrows and wannabe knigts can have their shield their lance and their bastard sword. However if you get off your horse you lose the item you had in the slot.

[sF_Guardian]

80% crush, dafug?

[Havoco]

Hmmm, I like this overall, but for some reason I can hear lady gagas charger again.

[Hobb]

Hmmm, I like this overall, but for some reason I can hear lady gagas charger again.

well all you would have to do to avoid this would be move just a little bit one way, the cav would be very limited on there turning remember

[Lange]

+1 for getting how cav should be.
+1 for the charge mode. (Dammit, can't give more than one point. )
But still: how will this stop the general backstabbing, which happens not by bump or couch, but by normal lancing? Didn't you make cav more powerful by allowing them to charge at an infantry block, yet allow them to backstab just as well?
Suggestions: Nerf their agility hard. Perhaps buff general lance range, and remove rearing from more polearms. Makes them even more "chargy" without only buffing them.

[San]

Crushthrough isn't much different than bump slashing anyways.

Sounds like a decent proposal to me. What will cav be able to do on maps with a little uneven terrain? They would need some room to get a good gallop in. Would it be too overpowered if it was 75-80% of top speed instead of near the top?

The funny thing is that if heavy lance was removed, cav would be faster at stabbing in cav v cav and better against infantry. You should try the regular lance for a little while if you haven't yet.

[Winterly]

So for a minute, archers can stay in barrier and fire? And regarding the Cav VS Cav...I don't see the difference...Sure Cav can't downblock your lance but it should be even easier to maneuver out of the way if the enemy is stuck in a relatively straight line.

[sF_Guardian]

Poin 6) is absolute garbage...

[Haboe]

7) add a unenterable barrier in spawn like in rageball goals that automatically kicks people in it after a minute or so

Nice ^^

Only problem i see are that some maps are based on the spawn and thus need new spawnpoints or something. (that map with the caravan and a long bridge for example, where camping the rock in spawn is a good strategy)

[Rumblood]

Nice fresh thoughts from a legit source on the subject. +1

[Ptolemy]

6) While a horse is in gallop lances cannot be downblocked (can still be chambered) and side swing weapons have crushthrough at a percentage based on their weight. ex. The morningstar would be like 80% chance

This is exactly what happens when this is implemented:

1. Cav form up on one side of the map.
2. Charge directly down the middle at top speed with their unblockable, 180 length heavy lances.
3. Kill large numbers from unblocked lances and knock over most of the rest of the team.
4. Reach the edge of the map, turn around.
5. Rinse, repeat.
6. If lance enters the eye, wash with warm water and call your local medical professional.

[Rhekimos]

This is exactly what happens when this is implemented:

1. Cav form up on one side of the map.
2. Charge directly down the middle at top speed with their unblockable, 180 length heavy lances.
3. Kill large numbers from unblocked lances and knock over most of the rest of the team.
4. Reach the edge of the map, turn around.
5. Rinse, repeat.
6. If lance enters the eye, wash with warm water and call your local medical professional.

Free kills for cav, but sounds kind of boring to play.

[Hobb]

This is exactly what happens when this is implemented:

1. Cav form up on one side of the map.
2. Charge directly down the middle at top speed with their unblockable, 180 length heavy lances.
3. Kill large numbers from unblocked lances and knock over most of the rest of the team.
4. Reach the edge of the map, turn around.
5. Rinse, repeat.
6. If lance enters the eye, wash with warm water and call your local medical professional.

Cav forming up is exactly what we want to have happen. If the infantry dont see the wall of cav forming up and act accordingly then they deserve to die

Also, I think reducing the base damage of damage done from horseback but increasing speed bonus would work well, but i am not a big fan of slowing down horses, it is equivalent to slowing melee down.

[Jarlek]

This is exactly what happens when this is implemented:

1. Cav form up on one side of the map. Infantry spots this and makes the polearms face them and most ranged focus fire on the huge, easy to hit, blob of horses and riders.
2. Charge directly down the middle at top speed with their unblockable, 180 length heavy lances. Most of the front ones gets stabbed by pikes, awlpikes, hoplite spears, halberds and bills. Whoever have throwing unleash their projectiles at the cav blob that can't dodge them and the huge speed bonus kills them/the horse.
3. The remaining horsemen kill large numbers from unblocked lances and knock over most of the rest of the team. Some gets slashed while they ride away by long swinging weapons as people jumps at the cav from the side.
4. The remaining horsemen reach the edge of the map, turn around.
5. Rinse, repeat.
6. If lance enters the eye, wash with warm water and call your local medical professional.

Fixed that for you.

Of course, if the infantry completely sucks at cooperating the cav would enter gigantic rape mode.

[Rumblood]

This is exactly what happens when this is implemented:

1. Cav form up on one side of the map.
2. Charge directly down the middle at top speed with their unblockable, 180 length heavy lances.
3. Ride into a hail of ranged weapons, taking full damage from the speed bonus
4: Go flying headfirst from their horses.