Usually, completly open maps aren't so great for cav (they are good in comparison of most maps though). The best maps for cav feature something flat plains don't have : things to hide behind and remain unseen. On this matter, archers and cavarly are exact opposites : Cav love to move without being seen, and archers love seeing without being reachable. That's why the worse possible thing for horses aren't buildings (to an extent, of course), it's hills that slow down the horses, barriers, little walls and those sorts of things that don't let them pass but still let ranged see them and shoot at them.
I'm all for more open, battlefield-looking maps and less of this urban trash we got in every game. Plains force teamwork, increase the use of pikes, shieldwalls, formations... All those things that urban maps fail to encourage.
That is very true.
I agree with OP's general idea: that lancing is a bit over powered at the moment. The heavy lance allows me to outreach almost any opponent, while simultaneously delivering a massive amount of damage. It's lack of speed is no drawback, for I control when and where my attack happens; I do not have to base my actions off the actions of my target and compensate appropriatly. My horse is fast, maneuverable, and quiet, thus I appear out of nowhere and deliver one-shot kills to unwary people.
The issue here is the nature of cavalry in this game, as I have said repeatedly. They're ninjas. They die easily, lacking armor and much HP, and thus compensate for thish by being very very fast. In the case of one hand/2 hand cavalrymen, this doesn't overpower them so much, for they REALLY have to close with their target--like, be on top of them. The longer a cavalryman's lance, however, the greater the distance between himself and his target, and the less chance his target has of realizing he's actually a target.
Even if he does know he's a target, defending himself may be a challenge, for the Heavy Lance is VERY LONG.
I STRONGLY SUPPORT the disabling of manual blocking on all lances, and a damage decrease.
Try down blocking or jump aside and slash the horse or the rider when you are about to get couched.
When you have become a good player you will realize that melee cavalry is of no threat if they come alone.
You will
become a greater threat to melee cavalry than they are to you and they will avoid you once they start to recognize you.
That's a fact, not an opinion.
If I see
Phyrex (a good 2H player) and he sees me I know it's just a waste of time to stay around, so I choose a new target.
If all infantry players were that good, melee cavalry would become obsolete. A buff would be needed. Then I would suggest you would have to both down block and up block incoming attacks from the lance.
It's too bad we are not there already but still in the "nerf this, nerf that" phase of the game, like everyone are noobs. I'm dissapointed.
Fact is that 5 good HA's would humiliate the top 10 infantry players on any map. Still there is more whine about melee cavalry. I'm not saying HA is OP but HA is superior to all other classes on most maps. Sure, they don't do much damage but they are still the winners. They are in command and can spend minutes to get down a guy without having to worry about themselves.
It's also interesting to see that people are still spreading out like hell on all maps instead of using formations. Sure, it' just public server battles, but if that was changed and people would start to really teamplay with formations and stuff melee cavalry would not be able to pick of players one by one like they do now. Melee cavalry would be too predictable and easily confronted alone and would also need to start teamplaying, which there is very little need of right now.
So instead of nerfing and making the game slower and less skill based, start to discuss
countertactics and make use of
formations already.
You don't need many people for that either. Instead of running alone, group up with players of other classes and protect each other.
Protecting others and making kills together is probably most fun (atleast I think so), but more often you see everyone just pursuing kills on their own not caring much for each other...
Remember this; There are always ways to counter something that is considered OP and suddenly it is not OP anymore. WITHOUT any stat changes.
