It breaks the inter-class balance completely which is probably the biggest issue. Right now polearms are too strong in comparison. 1H stab is arguably the best right now (imo it was even before this patch), followed by polearm and then 2H which still carries the biggest stun penalty, has the lowest damage and now lacks reach as well. The stab stats need a huge buff to keep it in line, otherwise everyone will either go with the non-stab 2H which were already strong, or simply respec to far superior polearm class.
Besides the stats one of the big problems as mentioned many times before is that you cannot see the tip of your sword. That makes it impossible to time the attack right and see the reach of the weapon. None of the other animations have this problem. The other major issue is that it's not really a change we needed and it screws up some players that have perfected the current animations. In a mod that's already about to die, there's really no reason to start breaking individual play styles unless they are somehow overpowered which 2H stab reach game never was imo.
So in conclusion I'd say it was worth a try, but please revert it.
This.
Ontop of that the polearm class is way more versatile than 2hs ever were. Polearms is able to fill a large amount of roles and do extremely well. This is especially apparent in strat, where the polearm is by far more useful than the 2hs in most situations (4-directional, hoplite, supporting infantry with long range spears, cav and so on). Hell, they can even use large 4-directional weapons like the long voulge on horseback. It doesn't really feel like there is something that the polearm class can't do at this point, which is why i went with it aswell.
Furthermore the balance between the stabs felt atleast decent. I did not see any stab being largely underutilitzed in comparison to the others. There was a ton of polearmers that used polearm weapons centered around stabbing, and the 1 handers got a great stab in one of the patches recently, which made them utilize stab a lot more. Now on other hand, i just don't really see the point of the 2h stab anymore. It's only going to be used in situations, where the 3 other directions could easily do the job aswell, and at this point they do a better one. There is not as much danger, when it comes to glancing and being stunned, when you use the swings, and they even deal more damage. In addition the 2h stab lost its biggest strength, the reach, while it kept all of its weak points. The 2h stab will probably lose the ''range game'' to most 1 handers at this point, if the 2h tries to engage in a range game fight with stabs. This is both because of the short reach of the stab, but also because of the animation, which makes it a lot harder to aim, since you can't really see where it's going.
Anyway, congratulations Panos, and you weren't even here to complain, it was just the usual 2h hate that brought this. You can say that i'm just crying or whatever, but the fact is that i have played 2h for 4 years, and i might have commented on the patches that weakened my class, but i have never ever respecced my character away from the 2h class, until now.
PS: I don't see how realism plays such a large part in this discussion. Realism never played a large role in balancing threads, because the original devs always valued great gameplay over realism, but i guess times change.