Rolling a small distance after being knocked down sounds like a good idea, but in my head all I can see is the animation of a player whose horse dies - they magically slide around the ground then teleport backwards, with their hitbox being nowhere near the actual body. I would also ask that turn radius speed (such as overhead attacking with an english bill or swiss halberd) be rebalanced if this type of dodge was added.
Sidesteps would be nice, but if you added a backwards step too I would really hope that the speed of regular "backpedaling" was reduced. It should have a 5-10 second cooldown, maybe even sharing one with nudge. You don't want everyone to be simultaneaously hopping and nudging all over the battlefield. That would be silly. Will you be able to block or attack during the leap? I think that short length weapons (nothing longer than a longsword or a war spear) could reasonably attack while making a small leap. It would be reasonable for throwers to be the only ranged who could attack during one of these leaps. Things like greatswords and pikes would be too unwieldy. Maybe manual blocking but no shield block, like the current system with kicks? What about a forwards leap?
the roll & recover like dark souls should come with a heavy penalty or cooldown. It would basically get you out of a cavalry charge for free if you were aware of the incoming horse. Against other infantry players, I'm not sure what would happen. If the recovery animation was too slow, anyone could get a free hit on you unless you dive behind a teamate. If it was too fast, there'd be no reason NOT to roll as soon as the cooldown was up. I think this one should not be added until one of the more "minor" dodges are implemented and tested.
From what I saw after nudge was implemented, thing won't be overused even if they are "OP" to some extent. When nudge was first introduced, several of the better 1H/no shield swords got buffed. You would
think everyone and their mother would hop on the nudge bandwagon and take advantage of this OPness. I only saw a small portion of players utilize nudge for a while. Takes time to adjust and all, etc. Thanks for reading my 2 cents!