There are several fallacious arguments that don't actually prove true as a practical matter in battles:
1. Cav only kills unaware people so its the infantry's fault not their OP status.
Have you ever been to any map where there are buildings or trees? Cav is completely SILENT until they have already hit you, then you hear hooves. You ae constantly turning around trying to cover teammates with a pike because it is so easy to be caught by a silent horse. You look back and see nothing, turn forward and 2 seconds later youa re couched or 1-hit killed with a lance thrust using speed bonus from arabian warhorse or courser. If you do happen to get lucky and catch a view of them when you turn around they just ride away and at best an archer gets only 1-shot (often none as horse can go 40 feet in time bow draw back) at a retreating horse before it gets away witha negative speed bonus, maybe taking only 10% of the horse's health or even less of the rider. But once they kill the pikeman (they target them if they catch them turning a corner), they proceed to repeatedly come out of nowhere as SILENT vultures killing teammates one after another no matter how aware, often waiting till they are fighting someone else before striking. Most people are aware and trying to spot cav nowadays and its still not good enough because of 3 main factors: speed, maneuverability, and silent hooves until too late.
Agreed on the silent part, the rest of it is BS.
First of all; cav sucks on maps with too many buildings, they cant move around and they get caught in narrow streets all the time, which will result in your hrose getting killed and you being helpless on the ground.
Second, even the little cav that is around i pretty easily spotable if you look behind you, especially if you are several people together (if you walk around on your own, not looking behind you, you cant expect to do very well).
Third; yes, cav often kill people wh oare already fighting, and if infantry has cav help in a 1 on 1 he will most likely win - just as he will if he has support from another friend - the only difference is that cav can get tehre faster.
2. Pikemen counter cavalry.
Typical battle yesterday, champion cataphract rider and 1 other cav left at the end for one team (typical ending) and 3 infantry including 1 pikeman on other team. 2 infantry hang near pikeman downblocking constantly and pikeman holds ready tracking cav on a hill with his pike. 30-45 seconds of cav just dancing around them then pikeman stabs at cav, doesn't quite reach as the champion cataphract turns on a dime and rides a few feet away as the stab starts, then immediately rides back in stabbing with heavy lance killing pikeman before he can recover, the courser zooms in on a couch kills one of the remaining infantry, but plays stupid and lets the 2nd infantry (one of the best players in the game) stab his horse (which was almost dead at end of round and then stabbing him to death before he gets back up), this was all occurring near trees on a hill (supposedly non-cav map), the cataphract doesn't zoom in for the kill but just decides to be cocky and shows duel sign and then gets off his horse. The other infantry sees this and calls the horse over and gets on the horse and then proceeds to spend a minute dancing around the lancer who is now essentially a pikeman until round almost over then suicides with draw coming close. Or another typical fight on NA 100, half the server is roughly half cav with 40 people on, the cav keep targeting the 10% of the server that is pikeman (far fewer because its more difficult support class than cav) and in massed pack kill them off while riding roughshod over all the infantry who can't hit them as they trample them from every direction at high speed and then destroy the entire team with almost no deaths no matter how organized the group was. If speed/maneuverability were realistic a successful block would allow swing/stab back if the horse is going 3/4ths speed and they failed to bump you, but it doesn't because evena t 12 speed yo can't witht he current speed of horses. Its like being a backpedaling long hafted blade spammer with 1-hit kills that has 30 athletics. Like this highly nimble backpedaler they have complete control of the fight with their speed and maneuverability with no repercussions of a swing back from a non-pike unless they slow toa stop or run into a wall like an idiot.
The pikeman failed, resulting in him getting killed. It would be the same in a 1 vs. 1 fight - if 1 guy mistimes his attack or fails to hit, he will get hit himself. Why shouldnt that be the case when fighting cav?
Also; i do think you are exaggerating about that 50% cav, cause people do that all the time, but even if it did happen; so what, i've also seen server where 50% are archers or 50% are 2H... does that mean these classes are Overpowered?
3. Horses are bigger target to archers so balanced.
The fact is the high maneuverability allows horses to dance away from arrows targetted at them from mid-far range better than infantry can even dodge despite the alrger size and also make it a reduced damage by riding away. Also, typical event once a map, full on charge by champion courser, shoot directly in the head with arrow and full speed bonus of charging courser, horse doesn't die, lance 1 shots archer. Then proceeds to lance oonce every 2second for the next 10 seconds killing 5 more people, every one a one-hit kill. End of map - top 4 on each team is cav even though on this particular non na 100 server the cav is currently only 25% of the server.
The fact that horses are a bigger target for archers is not a valid argument; they are a bigger target because (and this is a valid argument) of the fact that they are easier to hit.
You might disagree, but that seems odd since i know you've been an archer for a long time, and all the dedicated archers i've spoken with (lots of them, im a fallen) say that the horses are so easy to hit - which is he reason all the archers aim for them... why not help your team by shooting a few horses untill the inf gets close enough?
P.S. Balance is what makes game fun, watching one class always dominate with few to no options to counter is like playing a MMORPG where 1 level 80 wizard completely obliterates 10 people at a time. Archery was this way pre-January. Throwing was this way after January and I posted numerous similar threads in this vein when it became utterly obvious (throwing is coming back see a lot of people getting 2:1 k/ds now, do think ammo should be increased though). Well, cav has become utterly obvious as too unbalanced in its current state and needs adjustment of some sort maybe making them more balanced of being healthier horses with less speed and maneuverability.
Would it be more fun if the fastest horses were riding around with current plated charger speed? what would be he idea of cav riding the same speed as agi-builds? first of all it would be no fun at all, the reason i play cav is that i want to be in the heat of battle instead of just camping, how am i supposed to do that with so little speed while also being a main target of the enemy? and many cav feel that way. It wouldn't be compareable to reality either... ow often do you see a horse hitting top speed and still being slower than a fast runner?
Also, who would ever use an armored horse? 26 speed is a JOKE as cav.
Maybe people would take your seuggestions more serious if they weren't this game-breaking. This would totally ruin cav - if you dont like it, come with a suggestion to slightly nerf it in order to make it balanced instead of taking it out of the game.
