A very possible suggestion for LANCES and COUCHING

[Jeric]

This is going to be very controversial, hopefully I get some support, please be constructive in replies.

Realistically, a lance is a single-use weapon. They are typically very heavy and the force of collision, combined with an impaled target, is likely to cause it to shatter, if not fall from the lancer's hands. I'd like to see this feature inserted into cRPG in some way without nerfing cavalry or discouraging the use of couched lances. Here is how it would be done:

1st: the damage of standard lance thrusts would be reduced and rely entirely on speed bonus (I know I'll get flak for this, but in history cavalry tend to rely on their mount's speed for damage rather than their right arm)
2nd: the damage of couched lances would be increased
3rd: a couched lance entering a player's hitbox will cause them to be knocked down
4th, and the most important: lances break depending on a factor resolved from the lancer's polearm weapon proficiency and the lancee's armor
5th: if a lance does not break when it contacts an enemy, the couch will NOT end and the lance can continue to damage more enemies

So, you couch a peasant wearing naught but a tunic and your lance is perfectly fine. However, if you lance the guy in the gothic plate, your lance will break - unless you have (X) polearm wpf.
You spot a pack of six peasants, and if they're standing in a horizontal row, you can lance all 6 of them. But if there is a tin can in the middle of that peasant row, your lance will break on him, and you will only kill three peasants.
Edit: some clarification after I reread. Your lance will still damage an opponent if it breaks (perhaps at a reduced amount?).

Thanks for reading, please tell me what you think! You can't tell me it won't be fucking awesome when you mow down a couple of players, your lance breaks and you're forced to draw your sword to fight your way out!

[Dooz]

1-2) I believe changes to this effect were made in one of the last patches with thrust damage being reduced and couching increased, making both rely more on speed bonuses. At least for certain lances, maybe some were increased some were decreased not sure. Oh I think I just remembered, great lance got the buff, the rest got the shaft?
3) More I think about it, more I wonder why it doesn't already.... now that not all couches are instant kill, it's kinda weird having the guy remain standing after taking it.
4) Having lances break on couches, but not necessarily every single time rather based on some algorithm involving wpf, armor, and whatever else may be relevant, seems like a good idea. I don't think it should deliver less damage when it breaks though, it broke for a reason (see: delivering damage).
5) Five. Things veered into crazytown on five. But...... I love it.

[Jeric]

4) Having lances break on couches, but not necessarily every single time rather based on some algorithm involving wpf, armor, and whatever else may be relevant, seems like a good idea. I don't think it should deliver less damage when it breaks though, it broke for a reason (see: delivering damage).
5) Five. Things veered into crazytown on five. But...... I love it.

Well, realistically, a lance would break just about any time it impacted a person. It still should do damage or the lance would be useless against heavy armor, which would just be silly.
Edit: misinterpreted your post, sorry; you're probably right it should do full damage!

And yes, it did get a bit crazy around 5, but we have to convince people that cavalry wasn't getting nerfed

[Teeth]

Well, realistically, a lance would break just about any time it impacted a person.

Where do you get that from? If a lance would break on impact, it would severely reduce the impact it has. This might have been the case for tourney lances, which were designed that way to prevent deadly casualties, but actual lances, I am not so sure if they would break everytime.

[rufio]

tomuch work in persute of realism, not worth it. all weapons and armors broke on the battlefield. keep dreaming

[Dooz]

I don't think this is purely in the pursuit of realism, but also to make it so that someone can't couch all map long since it's a very specific game play mechanic with certain implications not found elsewhere (not directly, though some things like crushthrough may be similar) that many consider unbalanced or at least unfair. In other words, nerfing couching. Which isn't to say pursuit of realism isn't a noble effort to a reasonable extent for the type of mod trying to be created. I believe weapons can and do break in some other mods, including in multiplayer, so it's not some impossible dream anyone has to keep dreaming about.

Maybe lances could have hp like a shield and would break like one too, based on the type of damage it caused/took and against what kind of armored opponent. Just to make it so that entrepreneuring players couldn't find some sort of sweet spot of speed and enemy type that they could spam and never have the lance break. And just basically ensure it does break after a certain amount of couches no matter what against.

Where do you get that from? If a lance would break on impact, it would severely reduce the impact it has. This might have been the case for tourney lances, which were designed that way to prevent deadly casualties, but actual lances, I am not so sure if they would break everytime.

What do you think happens if a lance charges into a plated knight? And why, when it breaks off into the target which it was impaled, would it breaking mean it caused less damage when doing so? It broke because it was driven with great speed into a solid mass, it didn't break before making impact, it broke upon impact, having already delivered the damage.

[Teeth]

What do you think happens if a lance charges into a plated knight? And why, when it breaks off into the target which it was impaled, would it breaking mean it caused less damage when doing so? It broke because it was driven with great speed into a solid mass, it didn't break before making impact, it broke upon impact, having already delivered the damage.

Actually the lance breaking will reduce the impact considerably. It's like trying to punch through a piece of wood with your hands, as long as it breaks you won't hurt yourself much. Now if you hit with the same force and it doesn't break, you are going to be in a lot more pain. Same with lances, but then sort of the other way around. If the lance does not break, the target is going to be in a lot more pain than when it would not have. If the lance breaks the impact will be as big as the lance itself could withstand, if it does not break the impact will be the maximal possible impact, which is as large as the forward momentum of the horse concentrated on the tip of the lance.

Also, the differentiation the OP makes between the effect of a lances on a peasant and a tincan isn't realistic at all if you ask me. A peasant weighing 75 kilo's and a tincan weighing 75+25 kilo worth of armour isn't going to make that much of a difference for a 700 kilo horse going 40 km/h. There could be a difference in that you skewer the peasant and fail to pierce through the tincan and instead kill the tin can by blunt trauma and knocking him over, but then you'd be able to couch multiple tincans rather than peasants. Continuing to couch with 75 kilos worth peasant hanging from your lance is quite difficult.

[Riddaren]

Overall good ideas but like Teeth said; the lance should not break so easily.
Being able to couch several targets in a row would be cool but it feels like it would make couching OP.

[Grumpy_Nic]

I like the idea, this would create a much bigger shock effect when cav hits infantry rows and would have a bigger effect, at the same time this would probably be only once as there are enough people with heavy armour around.

I would like to bring an addition to this suggestion: Infantry could bring an additional lance (probably 2 slots) to give to the cav guy if his lance is broken. This would bring in some more teamplay as it requires communication between players.
Same thing with 2h/Polearmers that carry a siege shield and position it to help their ranged players.

[Dooz]

Actually the lance breaking will reduce the impact considerably. It's like trying to punch through a piece of wood with your hands, as long as it breaks you won't hurt yourself much. Now if you hit with the same force and it doesn't break, you are going to be in a lot more pain. Same with lances, but then sort of the other way around. If the lance does not break, the target is going to be in a lot more pain than when it would not have. If the lance breaks the impact will be as big as the lance itself could withstand, if it does not break the impact will be the maximal possible impact, which is as large as the forward momentum of the horse concentrated on the tip of the lance.

Also, the differentiation the OP makes between the effect of a lances on a peasant and a tincan isn't realistic at all if you ask me. A peasant weighing 75 kilo's and a tincan weighing 75+25 kilo worth of armour isn't going to make that much of a difference for a 700 kilo horse going 40 km/h. There could be a difference in that you skewer the peasant and fail to pierce through the tincan and instead kill the tin can by blunt trauma and knocking him over, but then you'd be able to couch multiple tincans rather than peasants. Continuing to couch with 75 kilos worth peasant hanging from your lance is quite difficult.

i feel your board and fist analogy is a false equivalence. the fact that one object is doing the piercing and the other receiving is not incidental, it's the whole point. i'm not sure you can just flip them around and have the same rules apply. in one case you're talking about damage dealt to the lance as it were, the fist, depending on whether or not the target itself shatters. then you're equating that with damage dealt to the target of a couch, or the board being punched. if the hand breaks after punching the board, the damage is already dealt and any loss of followthrough momentum and damage is probably negligible.

"If the lance breaks the impact will be as big as the lance itself could withstand, if it does not break the impact will be the maximal possible impact, which is as large as the forward momentum of the horse concentrated on the tip of the lance."

is this assuming the target is skewered on the unbroken lance and dragged along as mentioned in your next paragraph? or are you speaking purely about the moment of impact and acknowledging the op's suggestion of the target getting knocked down upon being couched. if it's the latter, the force of impact is still determined by the forward momentum of the horse and concentrated on the tip of the lance at the point of impact, whether it breaks or not after that point, which is what is in question with regards to determining damage dealt within the confines of this game. yeah, in real life a lance not breaking and going completely through a guy and then some by keeping moving forward is probably going to hurt more than if the lance broke and stopped penetrating after already having pierced the guts, but at that point  it seems purely academic. which is why, for gameplay considerations, it can be ignored and instead of a seemingly impossible mechanic of skewering foes on a lance, figuring out some sort of realistic amalgam of life physics and game physics that can be applied, a knockdown effect being a good example.

as far as the distinction between tincan and meatbag, i can see where the op is coming from but i agree it probably isn't a huge difference realistically, hence my suggestion of lance hp that reduces upon couching. but this would still require a way to determine how much hp gets drained against a given target being hit, and assuming a standard weight for a standard naked crpg man, anything above that in weight should probably have a relative increase in the amount of damage sustained by the lance if we're not going to go by just one amount for every possible collision. so it's not exactly something to overlook that extra 25 kilo worth of armor, if we're talking about how to implement a system of damage and destructability for lances that are couching them.

[CrazyCracka420]

Actually the lance breaking will reduce the impact considerably. It's like trying to punch through a piece of wood with your hands, as long as it breaks you won't hurt yourself much. Now if you hit with the same force and it doesn't break, you are going to be in a lot more pain. Same with lances, but then sort of the other way around. If the lance does not break, the target is going to be in a lot more pain than when it would not have. If the lance breaks the impact will be as big as the lance itself could withstand, if it does not break the impact will be the maximal possible impact, which is as large as the forward momentum of the horse concentrated on the tip of the lance.

Also, the differentiation the OP makes between the effect of a lances on a peasant and a tincan isn't realistic at all if you ask me. A peasant weighing 75 kilo's and a tincan weighing 75+25 kilo worth of armour isn't going to make that much of a difference for a 700 kilo horse going 40 km/h. There could be a difference in that you skewer the peasant and fail to pierce through the tincan and instead kill the tin can by blunt trauma and knocking him over, but then you'd be able to couch multiple tincans rather than peasants. Continuing to couch with 75 kilos worth peasant hanging from your lance is quite difficult.

Good example, also for us yanks it's similar to a baseball bat (wooden).  if you hit the ball and the bat breaks, the ball isn't going nearly as far as if the bat stayed in one piece.

I don't know why anyone would ever get the idea that lances broke after one use.  Tournament lances, obviously were designed this way (with blunted tips), but not actual lances.  They may have gotten impaled on the person they were hitting (in armor), I'm guessing if you hit someone without decent armor on, the lance would create a massive wound and as you rode by you would pull it up and out (your whole forearm, elbow, tricep are supporting the lance as well).

It's pretty dumb to be couching any lances besides jousting or great lance anyways.  You're better off stabbing with the heavy lance, lance or light lance.  Couching with those lances is really weak, and probably doing less damage than a thrust (at least that's what it seems like to me). 

[Konrax]

This is an interesting idea, I would like to make some tweaks to the idea:

I like the idea that it will continue through targets until the the attack runs out of time, a certain amount of armour is hit, or the rider ceases the attack.

1) Lets not have the lance break except in certain measurable scenarios (more to come)
2) Make it so that when / if a certain amount of armour has been hit the lance will be dropped immediately after the hit is scored.
3) The calculation for this should be armour hit x 2 against the effective polearm wpf of the rider
4) When the wpf is exceeded by the armour hit, the lance is dropped.
5) When the armour hit combined exceeds 150% of polearm wpf, the lance is broken. (Please note this is in a single couch)

What this will do is hitting a couple enemies or a tin can will make your lance drop, if in the scenario that you hit 2 tin cans in a row your lance will break. This will force riders to pay attention to commit to breaking they're lance in desperation, or release attacks when they don't need to commit that much. If they drop their lance they will need to return to pick it up, this will also allow ground melee to "guard" the lance to prevent the rider from terrorizing them further.

[Gurnisson]

They already do break. Why would you otherwise repair it at round end all the time? visitors can't see pics , please register or login

[Phew]

Interesting idea that would add considerable depth to lancer gameplay. The details would need to be tweaked, but cool idea nonetheless.

[Jeric]

They already do break. Why would you otherwise repair it at round end all the time? visitors can't see pics , please register or login

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