Suggested change to Riding/Athletics skills

[Tomas]

Make it so your combined Athletics/Riding skills cannot exceed half your Agility.

EXAMPLE: with 18 agility you could have
- 6 athletics, 3 riding
- 5 athletics 4 riding
- 4 athletics, 5 riding
- 3 athletics, 6 riding

PROs
- It nerfs hybrid Cav (of which there are currently too many due to all the high level chars in the game now)
- It doesn't nerf pure Cav or Pure Inf.
- Cav/Inf Hybrids will require high agility like all other hybrid chars do.

CONs
- It might encourage Strength stacking at high levels even more as it will be the cheaper alternative.  However too much Cav is more annoying than too many Strength stackers so this is a price I would be willing to pay.
- SoO will hate me and probably delete this thread

FURTHER NOTES
- Combine the above with a general agility buff and you will negate the main con of the idea.

[Vibe]

Could work but wouldn't really solve the eez mode that is lancer cav. Just nerf lance damage or something.

[Tomas]

Could work but wouldn't really solve the eez mode that is lancer cav. Just nerf lance damage or something.

I don't think direct nerfs are the way to solve the problem because the problem isn't OP Cav, it is too much Cav.

The constant nerfs to archery have never really managed to cut down on archer numbers so why assume that nerfing cav will cut down on Cav numbers?

[Tore]

no

[Malaclypse]

Could work but wouldn't really solve the eez mode that is lancer cav. Just nerf lance damage or something.

I'm going to continue to push my CLOP solution for raising the difficulty of the class. If they implemented this change, I would totally play cavalry.

[Xol!]

I came in here all set to downvote the hell out of this...

Then I realized that none of my characters are hybrids anymore (thank you transfer system).

This is actually quite a good way to hit the hybrids where it hurts.

[Son Of Odin]

I agree with one thing

CONs
- SoO will hate me and probably delete this thread

Freedom of speech and all... Just... Whatever. Either it's pure cav class => durable horses that don't die from one arrow/bolt/slash to the legs or a bit hybridized cav => doesn't become impotent once being dehorsed.

Your suggestion would probably kill the mod for me as I like the freedom of combining classes and all. If something is being done to the build system, it should be adding some melee things for archers rather than taking something away from some class.

[Rhekimos]

I like being able to both be an effective piker and a horseman, depending on what the team needs and terrain requires.

I paid nicely to get both 7 athletics and 7 riding, but with this, I should quit playing on foot with my main completely. Does this solve a problem?

[Ptolemy]

Like Contra said, this would only make people stop having hybrid cav and go pure cav, making them more effective as horsemen. I believe this would only exacerbate the problem.

Better solutions would be to heavily increase repair costs of cavalry, especially the Destrier and Arabian. Or remove couch from all but couch-only lances. Or nerf lance damage.

As examples.

[Piok]

Few months back Thomek suggested to reduce horses maneuverability, buffing of bump dam and horse health and was refused (specially by arab lovers). This will be easy doable just by changing stats and nobody will be forced to respec. But enough about some good Thomek's ideas (he has also very bad idea like constant buffing of katana).
My suggestion are:
Remove forcefield from horseman shield. Cause cav lancing is really fun but if you are not able to hit horse thanks to omnipotent forcefield it is very confusing. 
Make some arc limits to shield and weap. block on horseman rear. I do not think that cavs. should be able block attack from behind also this will buff couser as anticav horse.
Change couch mechanic to be more orientated on horse mass and less on speed (heavy and strong hoses were used for devastating couch attack not pesky nomad one). Overall nerfing it will be plausible.
Make some restriction to riding similar to powerdraw. If your riding skill is bigger than your horse requirement let say by 2 its overkill. This will end constant arguing why is rouncey better than palfrey  and also kill all joke lancer and bumper builds.
And last: Buff speed of heavy lance close to lance speed. Its too expansive for being soooo... slow

[Chagan_Arslan]

good idea

[Ptolemy]

Remove forcefield from horseman shield. Cause cav lancing is really fun but if you are not able to hit horse thanks to omnipotent forcefield it is very confusing. 
Yes.

Make some arc limits to shield and weap. block on horseman rear. I do not think that cavs. should be able block attack from behind also this will buff couser as anticav horse.
Yes, but no, it wouldn't buff courser in that regard.

Change couch mechanic to be more orientated on horse mass and less on speed (heavy and strong hoses were used for devastating couch attack not pesky nomad one). Overall nerfing it will be plausible.
Maybe... requires further discussion and information on proposed formulae.

Make some restriction to riding similar to powerdraw. If your riding skill is bigger than your horse requirement let say by 2 its overkill. This will end constant arguing why is rouncey better than palfrey  and also kill all joke lancer and bumper builds.
I'm not sure how this would be helpful - it would also require a free re-spec for all cavalry.

And last: Buff speed of heavy lance close to lance speed. Its too expansive for being soooo... slow
No! Heavy lance is already a super-power in the cav world.

[CrazyCracka420]

At first glance it's not a horrible suggestion (it would need to be athletics + riding, and only if you have riding) so you don't fuck over athletic builds who have no riding.

That being said, I could already do a pure cavalry build such as:

18/24
skills to atts: 14

PS - 6
Riding - 8
Athletics - 3

111 WPF in polearms


Could also go 15/27 instead, or 18/21 and have more IF or WM.

There's so many variations of builds you can do, even within the same class of character (polearm cavalry), that each one requires trading off strengths and weaknesses.  Everything in the game has strengths and weaknesses, that's what makes the game so great.  I think we should be leaving most aspects of the game alone, most things seem pretty well balanced to me.  And they did over a year ago before the archer nerfs, and before you made pikes/long spears from 2 to 3 slots.


p.s.  there's been a lot of nerfs in the game in the last 1.5+ years of me playing.  I think one of the worst for cavalry was changing the riding requirements of horses.  My bro was a level 33 lancer cav, who only had 4 riding for his courser.  They moved it up to 6 riding and completely fucked him over (obviously no free respec was given).  Please leave c-rpg alone...every nerf and buff has an effect on every other class in the game...and usually it's unintended and doesn't seem to be anticipated by the balance team or the devs.  I think the riding requirement changes were needed, but you should have let people respec for free.  But my point is that if you implemented the changes that the OP suggests, you would fuck over a lot of players who were never going to retire again. 

[Piok]

If you look on heavy lance stats its clearly the weakest lance. Still it delivers most massive damage on thrust of all of them. So what may look as buff is in fact a nerf. It's simple if you buff speed you nerf speed damage bonus and other dirty tricks such beginning stab long before you reach target or changing target in already released stab. Not to mention heavy lance wiggle or spinning horse with already released stab which is nasty surprise for every cav going for easy kill.

[Lichen]

Could work but wouldn't really solve the eez mode that is lancer cav. Just nerf lance damage or something.

I always thought 'lancing' as it is in this game made little sense realistically (I know game isn't based on realism but still). As far as I know most cav were 1h + shield or just 1h. Stabbing someone with a long stick from horseback while still trying to hold on to it = broken arm or you're simply not going to be able to hold on to it. The jousting lances should be capable of couching (and only couching) though. If cav were actually represented in a realistic way they would be far less irritating. How they are now in game is very unrealistic.