A few weapons that really should be unsheathable.

[Tears of Destiny]

You realize that this nerfs even pure Polearm melee users? Making those weapons unsheathable makes it impossible to also equip a shield on your back.

So you want a PURE MELEE USER to be unable to shield himself against ranged?

Yeah... As an archer main I would prefer it if users like Rhaelys continue to be able to use shields against me, and actually reach me to beat the holy frack out of me or my infantry that I was protecting/protecting me...

I don't like the idea of people not even having the option to sink points into shields if they use a real 2Her or polearm... It is hardly fair nor is it balanced.

[ArchonAlarion]

You realize that this nerfs even pure Polearm melee users? Making those weapons unsheathable makes it impossible to also equip a shield on your back.

So you want a PURE MELEE USER to be unable to shield himself against ranged?

Its not impossible, just less useful. My main char is a pure polearm user and I would gladly take the nerf for the sake of the game in general.

[Rhaelys]

Its not impossible, just less useful. My main char is a pure polearm user and I would gladly take the nerf for the sake of the game in general.

If I'm trying to approach a ranged character and I am forced to drop my poleaxe on the ground in order to equip my shield, what will I do when I get to my opponent? Punch him?

[ArchonAlarion]

Er... don't drop your poleaxe? Take heavier armor, athletics, and use shielders as protection like it was done in the olden days 

I do this all the time.

[Rhaelys]

Er... don't drop your poleaxe? Take heavier armor, athletics, and use shielders as protection like it was done in the olden days 

I do this all the time.

I do all three, and that's still not enough, especially when it's a 1v1 against a ranged.

[ArchonAlarion]

Sucks, but I'd imagine this would be hard irl too. Plate armor could protect you, but it's too weak against ranged currently.

[Native_ATS]

(If you do not care about realism, skip to the next paragraph)
Since the dawn of makind, man has always thought that attaching a long pole by velcro to you back was ridiculous. Throughout history, due to Native limitations, huge weapons could either be attached to the back or made to fold and fit in the pocket. This has changed - the brilliant cRPG modders introduced the "unsheathable" flag. It can be done! we have the technology! So now, large medieval weapons can be treated as in real life - carried in hand and dropped to the ground when another weapons was to be used. There is no reason we should not apply this to most weapons in game to simulate the real limitations vs. advantages of large 2H/pole weapons.

Gameplay balance:
There is continual discontent with the number of people using powerful big weapons. The weapons themselves are fine, but when sheathable, they bypass the main weapon disadvantages - a poleaxe carrier can still use a shield and near insta-switch to his big whopper when he enters melee. He can have it on his back when lancing and then pull it out when de-horsed. etc. I believe that such weapons should not be used by cavalry (even ignoring the history aspect) or in combination with any ranged weapon. Infantry that choose to wield them should suffer the attached drawbacks (no shield switching, no switching weapons back and forth). On top of that, some sheathable weapons have a very similar counterpart which is for some reason unsheathable - so either both should be sheath or unsheathable (preferably the latter).

Benefits of "cannot sheath" flag:
As a compensation (game play) and appropriately (realism), the slot requirement of these weapons should be reduced - they are carried in hand after all. I think 1 or even 0 slot is acceptable in these cases. It will not help much to any ranged character because these weapons will drop to the ground the moment the player tries to switch to his ranged weapon.

Weapons that really should be unsheathable:
--------------------------------------------------------------
* Elegant poleaxe
* German poleaxe
* Great long bardiche + Long bardiche - the only difference of the "short" version is the tip of the blade.
* Glaive - The Swiss is 2 cm longer, lost the swing and cannot sheath. Glaive can keep the swing, but not the sheath.
* Poleaxe - I am sorry, but it looks idiotic sticking half a meter above the carrier's head.
* Long hafted blade
* Awlpike - 1 cm less than the Ashwood pike makes it sheathable?
* Long Maul
* Long hafted spiked/knobbed mace

About the long axes:
Axes can and were carried on back. You can find scabbards for wood axes in stores - but these were much shorter than the long axes. Again, the main argument here is the game balancing, excluding these weapons from becoming sidearms:
* Great long axe
* Long war axe

I would go on and on with the unsheathable polearms list, but for game's sake and the outcry that will come, we can leave a few sheathable polearms.

seems like just a 2hander crying about pol-arms

[MouthnHoof]

You realize that this nerfs even pure Polearm melee users? Making those weapons unsheathable makes it impossible to also equip a shield on your back.

So you want a PURE MELEE USER to be unable to shield himself against ranged?

Many 2H and pole users do not carry shields. Experience shows it does not disable them. Moving along cover and working with shielders seem to work.
 
At the same time, the archer/xbow will not pull out a LHB or GLA when you reach it. Perhaps this will also lower the number of 1 wpf xbows - if you want the big weapon and carry xbow just because you can, you will have problems using both.

[Lech]

Then again, this would be an indirect buff to cav like in the last 2 patches.

It would prevent cavalry from using them as sidearm, like most top cavalry do these times.

Also, add ALL greatswords to the list (and miaodao)

[ArchonAlarion]

Nah, greatswords could be sheathed pretty comfortably irl and that is part of the weapons' usefulness; they are lighter than polearms, faster, sheathable, but lack plate piercing power (currently plate is too weak).

[Ylca]

Balancing for realism tends to lead to unfun games. In real life one would not run off into battle alone and get murdered in the first seconds of a round, but we do not penalize or enforce any "forced squad" system. Realistically an crossbow bolt to the side doesn't mean a minor pause followed by a murderous rage charge towards the peasant foolish enough to strike you with that "abomination" of a weapon, it lead to being knocked full down and if you were lucky enough to be able to stand a marked decrease in combat efficiency.

People who are sliced in the head with a sword with no armor do not look over and continue fighting, they are grievously wounded and lucky to be alive and would be hobbling off the field with barely the ability to stay combat aware (pain, blood in eyes, panic).

Peasants did not fearlessly engage knights in massive armor recklessly, a man in full plate running at a peasant in armor would have caused that peasant to turn tail and run, it happened all the time. A "sanity" meter should therefore be introduced for peasants. Too much time near plate user and they flee or can't swing as well.

Speaking of fleeing, a cavalry charge that kill multiple peasants would often cause the group to break ranks and attempt to flee. In those cav maps where at least 40% of the team is killed in the first 2 minutes the game should immediately end in a route giving the team with the solid cav a victory. Perhaps not every time there was a route, say 20%

Do you see where many of these ideas seem to simulate realism while simultaneously making it an unfun game to play? Arma II is a solid game, but there is a reason that COD and MW2 sell millions of copies copies while still being significantly lower on attention to detail and minutiae.

[Gurnisson]

At the same time, the archer/xbow will not pull out a LHB or GLA when you reach it.

Slot system already fixed that. If an archer want an LHB, or any other large weapon for that matter, he can't use War Bow or Long Bow and can max carry one stack of arrows with the other bows. If a crossbowman has a large weapon, he can't use Heavy Crossbow or Arbalest.

You can't get top tier ranged weapon and top tier melee weapon on one character. You have to sacrifice either melee capabilities or ranged capabilities. In other words, it's fine as it is.

[MouthnHoof]

seems like just a 2hander crying about pol-arms

Just to be clear: My main is a pole/1H hybrid. He used to be 2H/1H hybrid (mostly Goedendag) in a previous generation. My alt is a no-shield 1H.

Balancing for realism tends to lead to unfun games.

Some realism is the attraction of this game, otherwise we'd have elves, lightsabres and dwarves with double bitted axes. Now allow me a moment to puke....
.. OK I'm back.
If you noticed in the original post, my argument is split between realism and gameplay. In this case, we get two birds in one stone.
One of the reason the slots system was introduced was to limit certain setups. The "cannot sheath" flag which was added at the same time achieves this goal much better: it prevents melee centric players from bringing ranged weapons just because they can. Those who wish to concentrate on taking cheap shots with xbows and thrown and even some 1-stack archers must pay the price of not having the largest weapons as well. The polearmers themselves pay for having the meanest weapons by restricted use of a shield - they can still have a sidearm with a shield to switch to, it's the switching back that is more difficult.

Slot system already fixed that. If an archer want an LHB, or any other large weapon for that matter, he can't use War Bow or Long Bow and can max carry one stack of arrows with the other bows. If a crossbowman has a large weapon, he can't use Heavy Crossbow or Arbalest.
You can't get top tier ranged weapon and top tier melee weapon on one character. You have to sacrifice either melee capabilities or ranged capabilities. In other words, it's fine as it is.

Most xbows I see have the smaller xbows with a big melee weapon - the greatest problem is the small xbow inflation carried by 2H/pole infantry just because they have 2 free slots, so why not taking a few cheap shots? There is a large number of cavalry riding with a lance and a poleaxe on the back. There are plenty of poleaxe/GLA/whathaveyou enjoying both a shield and the most powerful melee weapons. Unsheathable flag addresses all this in an instant in the exact same was it prevented such things in real life.

[Gurnisson]

Most xbows I see have the smaller xbows with a big melee weapon - the greatest problem is the small xbow inflation carried by 2H/pole infantry just because they have 2 free slots, so why not taking a few cheap shots? There is a large number of cavalry riding with a lance and a poleaxe on the back. There are plenty of poleaxe/GLA/whathaveyou enjoying both a shield and the most powerful melee weapons. Unsheathable flag addresses all this in an instant in the exact same was it prevented such things in real life.

I only quoted the part about archers and crossbowmen, because they can't have their cake and eat it too, as of now. I agree with most of your other points though.

[Ylca]

Just to be clear: My main is a pole/1H hybrid. He used to be 2H/1H hybrid (mostly Goedendag) in a previous generation. My alt is a no-shield 1H.
Some realism is the attraction of this game, otherwise we'd have elves, lightsabres and dwarves with double bitted axes. Now allow me a moment to puke....
.. OK I'm back.
If you noticed in the original post, my argument is split between realism and gameplay. In this case, we get two birds in one stone.
One of the reason the slots system was introduced was to limit certain setups. The "cannot sheath" flag which was added at the same time achieves this goal much better: it prevents melee centric players from bringing ranged weapons just because they can. Those who wish to concentrate on taking cheap shots with xbows and thrown and even some 1-stack archers must pay the price of not having the largest weapons as well. The polearmers themselves pay for having the meanest weapons by restricted use of a shield - they can still have a sidearm with a shield to switch to, it's the switching back that is more difficult.
Most xbows I see have the smaller xbows with a big melee weapon - the greatest problem is the small xbow inflation carried by 2H/pole infantry just because they have 2 free slots, so why not taking a few cheap shots? There is a large number of cavalry riding with a lance and a poleaxe on the back. There are plenty of poleaxe/GLA/whathaveyou enjoying both a shield and the most powerful melee weapons. Unsheathable flag addresses all this in an instant in the exact same was it prevented such things in real life.

You took a tiny snippet of my full argument and responded to it. I pointed out specific examples of why balancing for realism can be unfun and that was intentionally designed to point out the link between those decisions and this one. Your post has something incredibly interesting that i'm seeing over and over again:

"Those who wish to concentrate on taking cheap shots with xbows and thrown and even some 1-stack archers must pay the price"

This pops up all the time, and i don't see how it's not touched on more often, but balance is not achieved by revenge. 9 out of the 10 posts i see talking about "balance" are thinly veiled pleas to have something the writer feels is "cheap" because it has killed them removed or nerfed into unplayability. Problem is that people don't accept the fact that to someone everything in this game is cheap. I have watched people complain about archers killing them, polearms hitting, 2hers attacking, hell i even saw a guy complain because he couldn't break a steel shield in time to kill the shielder's teammate coming up behind them. There are people who will look at someone who decides to not engage in a 1v1 and instead wisely wait for team support "cheap".

If this game was balanced around what people feel to be cheap then there would be no game at all. Currently they seem to be attempting to balance around some sort of rock paper scissor style issue. Heavy armor can be defeated by polearms and ranged, ranged has no armor and is vulnerable to other ranged, cav, and any infantry but has huge offensive range, pikemen deal with cav extremely well and can rush archers, but fare poorly in 1v1s. 2hers have massive damage but low defensive options, etc etc. the list goes on and on.

Back to the balancing, make most polearms unsheathable and you damage hoplites significantly. Make polearms unattractive and the next thread that will come up is a thread complaining that cavalry ruins the game and needs to be nerfed. People rarely consider the long term implications of balance changes, and i really feel as though they should.

Keep in mind in every request for nerfs that, while you may be sticking it to the guy who has been annoying you with that particular build for weeks, you're also sticking it to the guy on your team who has been helping you get your multiplier with that exact same build. Also you might think that their contributions are not worth consider because your experiences are mostly negative, but as i mentioned earlier- play too many games with polearms and make them too unattractive and you will see CavalryRPG.