Enhancing Horses (updated 26th Jan 2007)

[del_diablo]

- horses are simply too slow (compared to reality)

Well, its something about game balance. If they had that speed we are talking pure infantery slaugthering, and besides they also lack the damage of riding over people for the note
A tad faster max speed would not hurt, but only a tad. Any more could heavly unbalance the game. And horses are already good enough in its ways.

- horses should try to avoid obstacles and collisions, not clip and rear into them

No comment

- full speed impact into another horse should result in something rather then immediately stopping from full speed to 0 and horse rearing

I agree.

- I'd like to see a higher chance of a horse dying in combat

I dunno, but i se them die all the time. Alot of times the rider is harder to kill than the horse, guess who dies first? Its a nice given Well, that takes time <.<
What i want to se is a middle-ground, grant horse a critical weakness on the head or something so its easier to take down with good tools(headshots of various weapons, and spears is instant kill). But it is also about alot more. Or dunno

 

[wolfstriked]

I want bigger horses.I am starting to play mostly in first person mode and find that I have to point my view down to keep orientated with horse.The perspective seems wrong and its because the horse is a pony.

 

[TSOShadow]

If the player is very careful and rests / dismounts / treats the horse that is wounded but not severely, (or is just exhausted), it makes sense that the horse will survive through the battles, with a considerable ammount of effort and time put in by the player. If the player doesn't want to do so, and would rather buy and go through 10 horses each day, they would just ride the horse (wounded or exhausted) into the ground and then get on a new one.

The aspect opens up roleplaying possibilities, strategic thinking, realism and all of that without affecting players who would rather not spend their time on horses - with there being quite a number of.

I like where the horse idea is going more or less.. Horse tournaments Is a bit of a leap for me... I don't even do the training fields horse archery/melee much just out of frustration of riding through and around where I need to be.

But a problem I often reach is keeping my party as a whole fast... I depend a lot of having extra horses and mounting my fellow hero's... This leads to more of watching those same horses get plowed into enemy lines and quickly over taken...

I really don't like the idea of my Calvary having to be held back on account that I don't want them constantly slaughtering or getting slaughter to save horses... The AI one way or another stops at groups to swing with the sword rather then plow through the line with proved poles. (even if told to follow me as i pass through the line)

And for god knows what reason I have gone totally blank...
This was just speculation about keeping my soldiers horses alive...
Maybe tweaking AI battle tactics or changing/providing some orders...

Reply and hopefully I remember more I'd like to bring to attention and think about...

id like to see some fire breathing and ice breathing horses and then maybe some flying horses  with wings

This is why nobody pays any attention to this thread because theres people like you who just spam and talk about stuff that you know will never be in the game.

I wouldn't mind them hidden in the game for modders/file tweekers to access >.>... cept maybe the flying... keep the battle more or less on the ground...

 

[PrinceGhaldir]

about the horse reacting to pain.
i would say that it should be, but only if the damages is at least X (say 15 or something).
A normal horse doesnt stop when you give it a pat.

 

[RoganDeAuria]

Hi, this is my first post in this forum so, HI EVERYBODY!.

I've been playing the game for some time now, and I think this is a great game and probably the best mounted-combat game ever. But I have some suggestions about it, some are repeated in this thread so I express my agreement with it:

All the falling thing,
-I would like the rider taking a little damage when he falls from the horse after it dies, and maybe a little more damage when the horse was running at full speed.
-I think horses take too much damage when you make a bad jump with it.
-I'm not very sure about this one, but lets see what do you think about it: People should fall from horses when taking heavy damage (or even after blocking heavy damage) if they are bad raiders... and horses should fall themselves sometimes (maybe on a bad jump or when they take damage while running). the game already have some animations of horses going to the ground (when they die), maybe its only a matter of making an animation of a horse getting up!

other things,
-I would LOVE horse-based NPCs with mounted weapons, like in tournaments, who lose his horse to mount in nearby free horses instead of running towards me with his lance. 
-Maybe trample over your own ground troops damaging them. I said maybe because this could change the game balance and/or cause trouble with the horseman AIs.

PS: excuse my poor English 

 

[Jess_the_Hobozerk]

Strenght - Is increased by a 'joulsting tournament' between yourself and an NPC. In order to pass a training 'tier', you will need to defeat (choose a number eg. 10) joulsting opponents. You pay to enter the tournament.

typo i saw
its supposed to be strength

 

[DarghK]

jousting tournament sounds fine. 

 

[L-J-F]

It just seems to me that horses are nowhere near as powerful as they should be. I've been killed by naked men with spears too often to count :\

I like the idea of being knocked from the horse and of horses falling or having an effect other than simply stopping when they run into a brick wall.

 

[Jess_the_Hobozerk]

How about a command for EVERY CAVALRY UNIT to have a lance out when in a line charging into thier ranks not like half of them with swords out like dumb asses and the other half of the cavalry have a lance out, im pretty sure when you charge into ranks you start with your lance in real life
it would break after that, you would switch to a sword after.  Not really a horse upgrage but it is you know?

That way my charge would kill at least like 20 people with like 40 cavalry not 3. 

 

[Font]

"Falling off the horse, would be possible if the rider's skill is the same and/or below that of the horse's required skill, and when the player is hit. Simple model:

    *** Rider skill < horse requirement, --> Rider falls off if they take 5-10 damage
    *** Rider skill = horse requirement, --> Rider falls off if they take 25-30 damage
    *** Rider skill > horse requirement, --> Rider falls off if they take 55+ damage

Using this system as an example, a player who has a riding skill of 1, and is riding a charger, would be knocked off easily with most hits. A player who has a riding skill of 3, and is riding a hunter, would take most hits encountered during combat, but would still be knocked off if they are hit hard enough with a heavy axe / headshot. The same player, who would have 4+ riding skill, and riding the same hunter, would stay on throughout almost any hit. However, there is still allways a chance to be knocked off if they are hit for over 55 damage, which would normally mean a direct couched lance from the enemy, or something very hard..

--- side note --- Regular falling off, although still existing in reality, would be a good point of discussion when horses behave realistically - ie. jump backwards / react to pain / defend themselves / throw the rider off-balance etc. -  and once the horse's calmness (as skill) could perhaps be improved on, and eventually which would still occur extremely rare, therefore there does not seem to be any points within discussion regarding that aspect at this time.

* Rider Skill Impact resistance - Each point of this skill gives a 3% chance of resisting the knock-down impact and gives +1 point to how much damage a player needs to take, in order to be knocked off. This would work in par with the above mentioned suggestion."




Only problem with that is, When's the last time you ever got hit for even 25 damage while on a horse, Once you actually get good armor (Idk, day 4) you only get hit for 10 tops. Or maybe my Computer hacked the game and gave me invincibility idk. But you'd have to make those numbers more realistic such as encumbrance = knocked off less/ thrown more. a horse isn't going to want to carry your fat butt all around a battlefield, thats for dang sure, especially if he isn't perfectly trained. But those are just my oppinions and if/when this is implemented the damages should be balanced by how much damage you can take (And 50 damge+ would kill you almost always, unless your lvl 10000000000000000 with ironflesh lvl 10000000 as well

 

[Font]

Perhaps maybe instead of falling off after having the (idk, 2+ as an example) of the requiered riding skill, you can be a "master" of riding that horse, and won't fall, but will "Stagger" more or less your weapon will go limp, kind of like getting interrupted while being hit period, and won't be able to steer your horse, (maybe he'll stop himself due to a sudden jerk in your legs or a chance for him to throw you due to your most likely complete loss of control.

Of course this can all be prevented by mastering "riding" and having an Agi of 30 xD

 

[Wurzelmann]

I think the major problem is the horses AI (in fact they have none while riding them!). Riding your horse feels like navigating a big boat. The animals don´t have their own will and will act emotionless and robotic whatever happens around them.

 

[socks]

For a game focused so much on horse combat, horses are developed very little. Barding, armor for horses, is also very underdeveloped. In the current system, certain types of horses [charger + warhorse] already come with barding and there is no possibility of getting those horses without barding, or other horses with barding.

1. Remove the charger and warhorse from the game. They already referred to the same thing, a medieval warhorse. Instead, beef up the courser some so it's more of a warhorse [it was regarded as a "medium" medieval warhorse.] and add a destrier [the "heavy" medieval warhorse.] and a rouncey. [the "light medieval warhorse.] In M&B, the Sumpter, which would have been equivalent to a packhorse, has more armor than the courser.

2. Barding. This would be bought from the horse merchant, and would be either leather, cloth [heraldic], mail, possibly some small amount of plate, or a combination thereof. There would be rear barding [croupiere], head barding [champron], and torso barding [for the sake of simplicity, this would be a mash-together of the criniere, flanchard, and peytral, which respectively were in medieval times barding for the neck, sides, and chest.] Certain types of barding would have "strength" requirements, similar to the human armor in the game. Different types of horses would have a strength rating determining what type of barding they could wear.

3. Barding would act as a modifier to the horse's base armor, instead of just being an integral part of the horse as it is in the default M&B.

 

[Rebelo]

I agree completely, horses should try to dodge objects, the higher your riding skill the closer you can approach and control the horse. Also find it pathetic in a cavarly charge when one horse touches another horse and they all stop. It ruins everything and the enemy takes them down. The horse either needs to aviod it or glance past and slow down only a little-depending on skill.

I think this will enhance the riding of enemies as low level riders will cause havoc in a charge because thier riders wouldn't be able to control them to stay close together...

 

[A_Mustang]

Horses need to bite, kick, run and have sophisticated AI scripts. 

I can't count how many times a horse has walked up to a player that just hacked it in warband, or waited patiently for a footman to finish hacking it to death.

 

[DanAngleland]

I agree completely, horses should try to dodge objects, the higher your riding skill the closer you can approach and control the horse. Also find it pathetic in a cavalry charge when one horse touches another horse and they all stop. It ruins everything and the enemy takes them down. The horse either needs to avoid it or glance past and slow down only a little-depending on skill.

I think this will enhance the riding of enemies as low level riders will cause havoc in a charge because their riders wouldn't be able to control them to stay close together...

I agree, the idea about rider skill affecting control of the horse is excellent, it should be hard to force horses to do things that go against their instincts (i.e. running through the middle of a group of armed men, or racing at full speed through a dense forest).

On the other hand, horses can collide in real life (horse racing for example), and when one horse runs into another shouldn't there be a good chance that one will fall over, or at least stumble? Being stopped dead in your tracks is surely making it easier (or not worse) than it should be. A cavalry charge should be ineffective if they are all bumping into each other, it should be important to have to space your cavalry out first and begin a charge in a line, not bunched up, trying to climb over each other and running across each others' paths. We can get away with this currently, because the worst that can happen when one horse collides with another is that we stop, even if you ride full pelt into a stationary horse/tree/house. Horses should be injured by these collisions, or perhaps they could have a stumble animation where the horse falls to its knees and the rider may or may not hang on.

 

[Wurzelmann]

Yes, horses should act like living animals. This avoid frustrating moments like: *horse stops and rears in a bunch of slashing maniacs,  slooooooowly gets faster ... STOPS again, REARS and you are instantly killed by someone stabbing you in the back*.

I'd love to see horses stumbling, clashing into each other, unsaddling their rider, fighting and fleeing from the battlefield... They are just too much zombie-like now.

 

[MacPharlan]

I like the ideas here, but some thoughts.


You should have a range of horses, from the basic riding horse to those trained for war. A normal horse is not going to do much good if you get into melee, it is going to freak and you are going to be doing everything you can to control it. Those trained for war on the otherhand do not take much to control and will aid if needed in the fight.

THis way the person that wants to go with the cheapest horse needs to make sure they are steering clear of the crazy folks on foot with shinny blades.

 

[IfJawsCouldWalk]

I searched but probably missed it without the proper key words but...
Being able to knock a rider off his horse without killing the horse itself..
And just while I'm at it, if there is horses running around and one of your knights has been dismounted they hop on it if it's close enough to do so.

EDIT: Heh, just noticed it in one of the above posts. Was more of a side not but it's there and a ton more elaborate.

 

[cvsguimaraes]

where is the horse penis?
seriously, to improve the game realism