Get throwing weapons, get xbow proficiency, get a shield, if you don't want to do that, then protect your own ranged from getting stabbed by lancers mid-round and they'd still be alive to help you with the horse archer/xbow. Or wait behind buildings and pray that you don't get a sudden case of A.D.D. and go trying to run down a horse.
It's a team game, and having many classes with many different weapons and armor is what makes this game so great. If you can't adapt to the conditions on the battlefield, then it's your problem, not the people using their strengths against your weaknesses.
A shield doesn't counter HA/HX, it merely prolongs the process.
And how does waiting behind buildings win me rounds or help me kill the HA/HX any better than what I already explained? As I said, the best I can do as infantry is to wait for flags while trying to get pelted as little as possible.
Sure having many different classes is great. But when you have classes like HA/HX, who can only be fought using ranged weaponry, doesn't that work against that idea?
Suppose the entire enemy team is HA/HX. What the fuck am I supposed to do as melee infantry other than repec into something that can do ranged?
The only thing that keeps horse ranged bearable is that there aren't more of them, and that now that their numbers are becoming a real problem I don't find it strange that people are getting vocal about it.
This is a bad argument, because you're basically saying that someone else's build is invalid because your own build can't defeat it. That's like if I would build my character 3/36 with a scythe, and then complaining that tin cans should be nerfed because all my swings bounce off them and they are impossible for me to kill. Ranged cav is very strong against a lot of classes... but there are also plenty of classes that are very effective against them.
Oh but I do think that tincans (well, armor rather) is bullshit. You shouldn't be able to stack armor so that you can shrug off weaker swings. Melee combat should be way more deadly.
That said, the tincan doesn't hard counter the scythe user like a HX would do. Through patience, skill and aimed held swings you can very much defeat him although it would be really difficult.
It's also a bad argument because until cav move slower than infantry on the ground, ranged cavalry will always be nearly impossible to engage in melee... as they should be since that's what they were designed to do. No amount of nerfs to damage & accuracy will ever "fix" the "problem" of infantry being disadvantaged against ranged cav.
Why?
Realism? I don't care about it, I want solid gameplay. If I want realism I'll just crawl out of the basement.
Gameplay design? Well, then that's shitty design imho since as I've already explained hard counters are bullshit.
In battle, where the objective is to kill the opposing team horse ranged is complete bullshit to me, since as infantry there is practically nothing I can do against them.