Some changes concerning cavalry

[Michael]

Some changes concerning cavalry

From my own experience, Hector is a dedicated lancer dedicated polearm with 9 power strike and 4 riding, Penthesileia dedicated 1h and 4 riding, and from what I see on the EU (official) servers, cav is played like this:

You ride to the enemys spawn, kill those poor souls that spawned a bit too late,

next,
you sneak behind the enemy and kill those that are either fighting with other infantry, or charging and focussing on your archers.

You avoid attacking anyone who is aware that you are there.

Lame!

Me personally I think the heavy lance arabian warhorse combo I use for Hector is overpowered, but so is Courser and Heavy Lance or destrier/ cata and bumpslash with 1h or morningstar.

Especially since the last patch makes it impossible to carry your pike or anti-cav shit in your pocket around.

On the other hand, even for a group of several competent horsemen its risky to charge 2 or 3 archers camping a hill because a high end archer can kill a horse in 2 shots, and a crossbowman with 1 shot.

Therefore, I suggest some changes concerning cavalry that should change how cavalry is played to a way we know from history or great games like Rome Total War.

Archers shoot 2h and polespammers, then, when they see enemy cav, they fall back behind friendly infantry.

Pikemen stop horses.

Horses fight their cavalry duels, the winning side then chases enemy archers.

No more lame backstabbing of fighting infantry, or even worse, circling around and through enemies and friendly infantry and killing 3 enemies and 2 friendlies by accident, then turn around and go on.

So, the changes now:

1) Make all lances couchable-only like you did with the Great Lance
This should already bring cavalry to a bit more realistic level.
Those who want to stab/ thrust would have to use Spears, that are not that long and therefore need more skill and awareness.

2) Reduce maneuver-ability of horses.
I think when the Arabian Warhorse was like the Destrier is now, and the other horses would have way way less maneuver-ability it would be fair.

3) Make Arabian Warhorse and Courser more expensive
For Hector I use Arabian Warhorse, Heavy Lance, Khergit Lamellar Vest and Plate Boots all the time, and usually I still make money.

4) Make the armored horses cheaper, and/ or give more body armor and hit points to the unarmored horses so that horsemen dare to charge rangers.

Ranged troops should run when they see cavalry charging them.

This would make the game a bit more tactical, not just one-man-shows both for archer, who stands dumb around in the open field and still gets tons of kills,
and the horseman, who is just a sneaky bastard backstabbing coward and gets even more kills by simply pushing left mouse button.   

[Frell]

We need something you can lay down like wooden spikes or something as a horse trap. Its decently visible from the cav but you can also use it stay against.

[PhantomZero]

No, cavalry are flankers, if you feel this is somehow lame or dishonorable, grab your katana and some strange armor and stay on foot.

[Frell]

I just honestly dont think unarmored horses should be able to take 4 or 5 arrows... Speed increase is one thing, but not health. A shot to the head is a shot to the head, the horse will die.

[Toffi]

You can play the way you like- spawnkilling + backstabbing, but you can also be more efficient and clever and try to kill the enemy top-players, and other cavalry trying to spwanrape and backstab your teammates. This is not lame at all.

You see my point?

[MrShovelFace]

manueverablility is the problem with horses. It is far too easy for them to fix their mistakes. While this is not a problem with usual horses that are built for manueverability but now i can see even coursers making 180 turns on their own length.

and the mega bump of the courser and armored horses defies logic. I have seen formations as much as 5 deep get all knocked down by a running courser. A deep formation should be the logical way of fighting infantry vs cav without the use of pikes but instead i see horse men swoop in for a kill, and run over 7 or 8 guys on their way out of the danger zone.

understandably specialized horses (such as destriers, and war horses) should be able to do this to an extent being trained as war horses but the lesser horses that have stats comparable to farm horses and race horses should not have near the same feat

[Rextard]

Here's a change that would be nice. Horses that don't keep running without missing a beat when you shoot them in the face with a crossbow. That's what I want to see change.

[Dom.Miguel]

manueverablility is the problem with horses. It is far too easy for them to fix their mistakes. While this is not a problem with usual horses that are built for manueverability but now i can see even coursers making 180 turns on their own length.

and the mega bump of the courser and armored horses defies logic. I have seen formations as much as 5 deep get all knocked down by a running courser. A deep formation should be the logical way of fighting infantry vs cav without the use of pikes but instead i see horse men swoop in for a kill, and run over 7 or 8 guys on their way out of the danger zone.

understandably specialized horses (such as destriers, and war horses) should be able to do this to an extent being trained as war horses but the lesser horses that have stats comparable to farm horses and race horses should not have near the same feat

About the bump thing i suggest a speed reduction for each bump and a new stat for horses that wll determine speed loss

[Rextard]

Unarmored horses should take damage for bumping. Especially if they're bumping armored opponents. Horse flesh is not harder than metal.

[BD_Guard_Bane]

If you reduce manoeuvre, you also have to change speed. They don't work independently of each other. 

Also, people complain a lot about the Arabian Warhorse. It is very quick to turn, true, but it also dies very fast (one arrow from most archers takes between 60% and 90% of its hit points).

I agree that horses and cavalry need a bit of balancing, but I think a general stat nerf to manoeuvre or speed is retarded (particularly since nobody actually knows exactly what those stats do, or what the riding skill does).

Also, any nerf to horse stats won't affect all cavalry equally. Lance cav, 1hand/shield cav, 2hand cav, horse archers, jav cav, and xbow cav all choose horses for very different reasons, based on the weapon they're using and the style of combat they use.

Personally I'd like to see horses balanced somehow so that light (non-armoured horses) cav is forced to focus more on support (which isn't what light lance or, to a lesser extent, 1hand cav does at the moment), and armoured horses are able to act as heavy cav, able to charge aware troops except pikes (with a huge increase in cost of armoured horses).

[Bulzur]

Also, people complain a lot about the Arabian Warhorse. It is very quick to turn, true, but it also dies very fast (one arrow from most archers takes between 60% and 90% of its hit points).

I need 3 to 4 shots, if none in the head, to get this damn Arabian Warhorse down. Wich means i'm probably dead before, since with it's huge maneuver, he can hugbump me easily.
How come the armored (even lightly) man on top of the horse die faster than his unarmored mount ?
Even with good focus, i find it nowadays extremely difficult to deal with cavalry, may it be HA, lance or 1h. The 1h probably the easiest to dodge, the ha the least dangerous, and the lance clearly the harder. I can even jump sideways, i still get lanced.

Who cares about awareness, since it only allows you to see the rider in the eyes before dieing ?

[Lady_Cicilia_Rosewood]

If a rider could be dehorsed without killing the horse, then the compensation in game mechanics for hp and whatnot didn't have to exist. As it is however...

[Overdriven]

I need 3 to 4 shots, if none in the head, to get this damn Arabian Warhorse down. Wich means i'm probably dead before, since with it's huge maneuver, he can hugbump me easily.
How come the armored (even lightly) man on top of the horse die faster than his unarmored mount ?
Even with good focus, i find it nowadays extremely difficult to deal with cavalry, may it be HA, lance or 1h. The 1h probably the easiest to dodge, the ha the least dangerous, and the lance clearly the harder. I can even jump sideways, i still get lanced.

Who cares about awareness, since it only allows you to see the rider in the eyes before dieing ?

3-4 shots? What bow, arrows and PD do you have? I use a masterwork strong bow, bodkins and 5 PD and can kill a champion arabian warhorse in 2 arrows. They are very weak. Besides, if you are in the position that a horseman is coming straight at you and you're shooting it, you should be able to head shot it, which insta kills most unarmoured horses. Admittedly this can be a bit iffy sometimes, the one shot head thing is a bit glitched. But probably 80% of the time if I hit a full health horse directly in the head it kills it instantly.

Coursers are a different matter, they take 3-4 arrows, though still die to head shots.

But anyway, we in GK comment on this all the time. As a horse clan we notice the lack of awareness of people. Seriously, when guys like Chagan and other lancers can ride through a group of enemies over and over getting kills, it's not because of OP horsemen, it's because people don't seem to learn to listen and look. Nor do they focus on killing the dangerous players. Everyone is out for themselves. If people focused just a little bit more, you'd hear/see that horseman coming and you'd focus on taking him down.

It's easy for horsemen to kill because melee players are usually to unaware to do this. So change you're game plan. Cav is fine as is.

As to MrShovelFace saying coursers can turn, use one. They can't. When you saw that it must have been a fully heirloomed courser. I use the Well bread courser as an HA, and I can assure you they cannot turn for crap. If you are charging full speed on a courser, you make a mistake, you die. There is no time to correct yourself because their turning circle is appalling. Their speed and HP make up for that. If you saw them turning 180 on their length, they weren't moving at anywhere near full speed. The same way the Arabian Warhorse has crap HP and speed but good manouvreability. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses.

I have seen this argument many times, and it seems people aren't happy until the possibility of making all unarmoured horses exactly the same is considered. If they weren't different to each other, there'd be no point.

[Kafein]

If you reduce manoeuvre, you also have to change speed. They don't work independently of each other. 

Also, people complain a lot about the Arabian Warhorse. It is very quick to turn, true, but it also dies very fast (one arrow from most archers takes between 60% and 90% of its hit points).

I agree that horses and cavalry need a bit of balancing, but I think a general stat nerf to manoeuvre or speed is retarded (particularly since nobody actually knows exactly what those stats do, or what the riding skill does).

Also, any nerf to horse stats won't affect all cavalry equally. Lance cav, 1hand/shield cav, 2hand cav, horse archers, jav cav, and xbow cav all choose horses for very different reasons, based on the weapon they're using and the style of combat they use.

Personally I'd like to see horses balanced somehow so that light (non-armoured horses) cav is forced to focus more on support (which isn't what light lance or, to a lesser extent, 1hand cav does at the moment), and armoured horses are able to act as heavy cav, able to charge aware troops except pikes (with a huge increase in cost of armoured horses).

Just no, the OP suggestions might be a little extreme, but the maneuvrability nerf seems the most reasonable to me. Currently there's no such thing as "impact" or "heavy cavalry". The lancer+JetPony build works so well anything else would be useless anyway.

3-4 shots? What bow, arrows and PD do you have? I use a masterwork strong bow, bodkins and 5 PD and can kill a champion arabian warhorse in 2 arrows. They are very weak. Besides, if you are in the position that a horseman is coming straight at you and you're shooting it, you should be able to head shot it, which insta kills most unarmoured horses.

Coursers are a different matter, they take 3-4 arrows.

But anyway, we in GK comment on this all the time. As a horse clan we notice the lack of awareness of people. Seriously, when guys like Chagan and other lancers can ride through a group of enemies over and over getting kills, it's not because of OP horsemen, it's because people don't seem to learn to listen and look. Nor do they focus on killing the dangerous players. Everyone is out for themselves. If people focused just a little bit more, you'd hear/see that horseman coming and you'd focus on taking him down.

It's easy for horsemen to kill because melee players are usually to unaware to do this. So change you're game plan. Cav is fine as is.

As to MrShovelFace saying coursers can turn, use one. They can't. When you saw that it must have been a fully heirloomed courser. I use the Well bread courser as an HA, and I can assure you they cannot turn for crap. If you are charging full speed on a courser, you make a mistake, you die. There is no time to correct yourself because their turning circle is appalling. Their speed and HP make up for that. If you saw them turning 180 on their length, they weren't moving at anywhere near full speed. The same way the Arabian Warhorse has crap HP and speed but good manouvreability. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses.

I have seen this argument many times, and it seems people aren't happy until the possibility of making all unarmoured horses exactly the same is considered. If they weren't different to each other, there'd be no point.

Even with teamwork and focus it can be extremely hard to track 2 or more JetPonies. They take less than 2 seconds to make a U-turn from max speed and go in the reverse direction at max speed. And even when there's only one, the speed, damage and reach of the heavy lance simply needs further nerfing. From a realistic point of view, a lance used one handed didn't packed much force and could hardly kill someone with mail. Lances from that period were mostly couched because it was the only way it could do enough damage against the armors of that time.

I'm all for having strenght and weaknesses. But currently, there's one strenght, maneuvrability, and one weakness, the lack of it. All unarmored horses die with 2-3 arrows. The only difference being that some can turn and accelerate ridiculously fast. it's usually way harder to bump or, even more importantly, to avoid unplanned events with less maneuvrability, in the case of a pike stop, all horses are equal. Only some of them are better at avoiding pikes. There's ton of others situations where maneuvrability is the best attribute for your horse, including cav vs cav for example.

For me part of the solution would be nerfing the effect of the riding skill. The changes in riding requirements and the lowering to 3  of the attribute req some patches ago weren't countered by some tweak of the riding skill effect.

[Hunter_the_Honourable]

You cant change people play style its what makes this game unique people do their own thing but at the same time help others (apart from trolls) by making these changes you will make cavalry less enjoyable to play as