Spears are weak.

[Lord Irontoe]

Reading about "we have just 4 slots for weapons" I am thinking for some time whether any bow and crossbow should not have some shots with in same slot like we have javelins and throwing knives and axes. So spear would not be that bad as situational weapon if also bow and xbow had some arrows/bolts of their own without sacrificing precious slot for weapon.

That's probably easily moddable. In Warband, ranged weapons had an ammo value. It was typically set to 0 or 1 for bows and crossbows, meaning the weapon either came with no shots or 1 shot, but some mods would change the number to make things like repeater crossbows. I haven't looked at the game files, but I'd imagine that ammo value is still there, so you could just change it to 30 or something to get 30 free shots without having to carry arrows. You just wouldn't get any of the extra damage from the ammo.

 

[Mastigos]

rested in history that agree with me. I'm not pitting his statement against anyone elses. You are.
2. Period artwork or not, you're posting random pictures in the hope that they will make your argument more convincing. They don't. You have specifically chosen only art/quotes/evidence that supports your view, while ignoring all else. That's the embodiment of the cherry picking fallacy.
3. George Silver, the guy who you spear-worshippers love to quote, said himself that the Morris Pike was the king of defensive combat, and 2h swords/1h sword and target/forest bill were king of offensive combat. On the battlefield. You can keep claiming the same nonsense until you're blue in the face, it doesn't change the fact that you're wrong.
4. The Warring States period didn't completely end until 1615. So you're not only wrong - again - but you're also back to your mud-flinging. Ad hominem attacks are what you're best at, aren't they? But they don't prove a thing.

You seem to be disregarding the large number of people in this thread disagreeing with you and pointing towards some silent majority advocating for the completely dominance of swords. You say that spears have a niche usefulness in countering cavalry when I've already proved that swords can do a better job. What is left to spears?

By the way, the argument that spears depend on momentum is one of the biggest weaknesses of the weapon. Grab a two handed axe, swinging polearm, or sword and you can ride down cavalry far better than a spear can. Spears can only joust, and jousting is extremely dangerous. Any momentum you have can be used against you, and it's easy to demonstrate this early game when you ride past a looter and a leg cut takes away a huge chunk of HP.

Spoiler

You are trying to turn this isnt a sword vs spear debate. This is the third time I'll repeat myself: this isnt about swords. Its about spears vs other melee weapons.

The fact that you continue to push this weird "us vs them" mentality just keeps pointing out that you're a fanboy trying to defend simpering spear-worship with framing this thread as VERSUS SWORDS. As if maces and axes and glaives have no bearing on anything.

As for momentum? What you view as a weakness isnt a weakness. Spears are more responsive to momentum, and are rewarded heavily for having it. More than the swords you view as your archnemesis.

 

[Mastigos]

1. The vast majority accept and know the spear was the superior weapon and that the sword was a backup weapon
3. A pike is not a spear and as i already stated the pike was a formation weapon that was actually an excellent anti infantry weapon and great at denying cavalry opportunities. As for George Silver he was around at the end of the 16th to start of the 17th century Pike and shot tactics came about iirc in the 15th century.
4. In regards to Musashi lets say that his accounts are correct and true this changes nothing just because a spear is the better weapon it does not make anyone invincible. Read this qoute properly
"We practice spear and go sword against spear every now and again, enough to start getting used to it. One of the things we've observed is that although the spear has the advantage, and retains the advantage even after training against it for a long time, the advantage diminishes as the swordsmen get more and more used to facing the spear. It just takes time and practice."
See where they state that with time and practice that advantage can be diminished Musashsi being exceptionally gifted in swordplay including dual weilding is an exception not the rule. Any spearmen could be beaten but the simple fact is the spear gave them an advantage that is a fact.

You have gotten lances and pikes confused with spears a couple of times in this thread now and the only one ignoring evidence is you because you are a sword fanboi.
You claim you dont give a dam about rl history yet continue to argue about it instead of dropping it and focusing on the game.
And not once have i come across anything that says otherwise about the spear btw.

1. You think the "vast majority" share your pet view. This is delusion.
2. If you think a pike isnt a spear, then George Silver completely disregarded the spear as a quality battlefield weapon. Which I doubt, because spears are great. You really argued yourself into a corner.
3. Random quotes dont do you any good. And while your point is correct - just because x is better than y doesnt mean x always wins - doesn't mean your belief that spears are best at duels is correct.

You saying I'm a "sword fanboy" is baseless drivel; see my above post.
You saying I dont care about history is laughable. You took something I said completely out of context and attribute new meaning to it. Did you vote for Trump by chance?

 

[Jagati Khan]

1. You think the "vast majority" share your pet view. This is delusion.
2. If you think a pike isnt a spear, then George Silver completely disregarded the spear as a quality battlefield weapon. Which I doubt, because spears are great. You really argued yourself into a corner.
3. Random quotes dont do you any good. And while your point is correct - just because x is better than y doesnt mean x always wins - doesn't mean your belief that spears are best at duels is correct.

You saying I'm a "sword fanboy" is baseless drivel; see my above post.
You saying I dont care about history is laughable. You took something I said completely out of context and attribute new meaning to it. Did you vote for Trump by chance?

1. No this is fact that is backed up by history you are the only dilusional one around here please note you are the only one stating such drivel.
2. You obviously have no comprehension of the time period George Silver lived in the weapons, armor and tactics of the time.
During this time plate armour was at it's pinnacle and gunpowder weapons were ever improving and taking more of a role on the battlfield.
And NO the pike is not a spear thats why it is called a pike not a spear jesus its not hard is it.
3. Spears were better than swords in duels it is a fact a soldier with weeks/months of training could fend off and defeat swordsmen with years of training again this is fact and backed up by evidence.
4. All you can spout is Musashi this Musashi that and there is debate over if his deeds were real or exagerated whereas the training documents that you like to dissmiss are real and were used. You also like to try and dismiss anything that is contrary to you fairy tale.

Seriously nowhere can i find anyone that says the sword was better than the spear and that search goes back to when i thought the same as you the difference being i am open to learning and educating myself.
It's like all the myths that surround the Katana oh it was folded 2000 times to make it stronger it can cut through anything nonsense.
The reason a Katana was folded was to remove impurities and it wasnt 2000 times that would have had the opposite effect as you would just remove all the carbon. And there are plenty of Eurpean swords that cut just as well and better.
Honestly you are completely clueless about histroy and it is obvious you have fallen for the romanticized notion about swords made worse by their portrayal in film and tv.


Spear can both cut and thrust
Spear thrusting power is superior Sword has superior cutting power (which armor was better at dealing with)
Spear has far more range/reach
Spear thrust is far quicker than a sword thrust or cut
Spear takes far less training too use we are talking weeks/months compared to years.
And again i will reiterate that of course a swordsmen can defeat a spearmen but the advanatage is with the spear from the start it is accepted fact.

 

[Life_Erikson]

I absolutely agree with OP.

 

[Ishtarin]

You are trying to turn this isnt a sword vs spear debate. This is the third time I'll repeat myself: this isnt about swords. Its about spears vs other melee weapons.

The fact that you continue to push this weird "us vs them" mentality just keeps pointing out that you're a fanboy trying to defend simpering spear-worship with framing this thread as VERSUS SWORDS. As if maces and axes and glaives have no bearing on anything.

As for momentum? What you view as a weakness isnt a weakness. Spears are more responsive to momentum, and are rewarded heavily for having it. More than the swords you view as your archnemesis.

A one handed sword on an easy jot can oneshot a man on the ground. A two handed axe straight up cleaves through people. A glaive will oneshot anyone who isn't a tier 5 imperial horseman. What advantages do spears have again? Their best function, anti-cavalry, is done much more efficiently by other weapons. A spear on a horse fighting the Khuzaits is absolutely useless. A glaive fighting the Khuzaits is enough to take care of a horse archer blob by itself. Where are spears stronger than other weapons? Not on the ground, as you can see how 300 swordsmen can do more damage and take less damage to 300 Vlandian knights. Not on a horse, as you can buy a glaive from a Khuzait city and go around playing dynasty warriors.

 

[Shik]

Spear suck now because MP players whined about them during the beta. Since MP and SP share core game parameters, damage formula, collisions and physics the nerf in MP applies equally in SP.

Note how in the video spears were much more effective in the beta than they are now, this was considered overpowered for competitive gameplay and taleworlds decided to do a blanket nerf to the core mechanics of how spears work.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

Spear suck now because MP players whined about them during the beta. Since MP and SP share core game parameters, damage formula, collisions and physics the nerf in MP applies equally in SP.

Note how in the video spears were much more effective in the beta than they are now, this was considered overpowered for competitive gameplay and taleworlds decided to do a blanket nerf to the core mechanics of how spears work.

That's interesting. I remember seeing that old Gamescom video where the dev was playing during the interview and just wrecking everything with a spear and it actually got me excited about how effective it looked, and then I tried them for myself and they were crap. This explains it.

The guy in the video does make good points, though. Those spears do look OP, but it seems like they over-corrected too much. Something in the middle between that video and what we have now would be perfect

 

[Shik]

It's impossible to reconcile the interests of AI balance in singleplayer and multiplayer balance because the footwork that players in multiplayer use to make thrusting polearms effective in MP is too intricate to be replicated by the AI. They should just balance physical properties and mechanics separately in singleplayer and multiplayer.

 

[Kripaz]

Spear suck now because MP players whined about them during the beta. Since MP and SP share core game parameters, damage formula, collisions and physics the nerf in MP applies equally in SP.

Note how in the video spears were much more effective in the beta than they are now, this was considered overpowered for competitive gameplay and taleworlds decided to do a blanket nerf to the core mechanics of how spears work.

Only nerf TW did was reduce spear damage and especially headshot damage. Spears are still powerful in SP and MP. Only problem is, it needs stupid janky movement to make it work and most of players don't like it. It's weird to say it's a fault of MP players because it's always been the same.

 

[Shik]

Only nerf TW did was reduce spear damage and especially headshot damage. Spears are still powerful in SP and MP. Only problem is, it needs stupid janky movement to make it work and most of players don't like it. It's weird to say it's a fault of MP players because it's always been the same.

This isn't correct, the physics were changed as well, spears used to be more flexible about when and where they could deal damage as you can see in the video. They do basically 0 damage up close now unless you do rotational movement ('jank') that the AI cannot replicate. Can't really blame MP players because spears were a problem in beta but the way TW decided to 'fix' it was completely wrong. The low damage is also a problem too though, spears do less damage than one handed sword thrusts

Also, many spears are bad even in MP now, there's an awlpike perk on vlandia and there's a reason no one takes it

 

[Kripaz]

This isn't correct, the physics were changed as well, spears used to be more flexible about when and where they could deal damage as you can see in the video. They do basically 0 damage up close now unless you do rotational movement ('jank') that the AI cannot replicate. Can't really blame MP players because spears were a problem in beta but the way TW decided to 'fix' it was completely wrong. The low damage is also a problem too though, spears do less damage than one handed sword thrusts

Yes that's correct that ai is absolutely braindead when it tries to use a spear, but player still can do full damage when he puts point of the spear next to opponents head. The whole core of spear combat is rotten currently as ai doesn't know how to use it and players can exploit it.

 

[Lord Plazma]

1. Stabs are more deadly, no matter what. You simply go to organs like the heart.
2. Stabs can pierce an armor relatively much easier that swings. Anyway to piercing an armor with the spear you need first be able to hit! If the enemy is too close you don't have enough space to hit with full of strength. Plus blunt damage can be more deadly for heavy armor like a full plate.
3. Wielding spear is easy and making a nice distance between enemy, but if enemy flanking you, fighting in a narrow place or is too close to you, a spear is a little useless.
4. Lance now in my opinion too short, anyway lance =/= spear.

I thing spears need a little buff, but AI can't use this and maybe animation/hitbox are not correct too.

 

[sjblack2014]

Sure! It's an early prototype just for playing around, but should be enough for what you want to do. I've gone ahead and added an if statement to check if the hit agent was just a normal infantry for you.

I'll probably be leaving this as-is for a while since I've got some other experimenting I want to do now, so don't expect any frequent updates to it.

Source Code

Forgot to ask, is this code based on 1.2.1 or 1.3.0? I was assuming it was 1.2.1, but today I'd have to update to 1.3.0 and wonder if there won't be any problems.

 

[Jagati Khan]

1. Stabs are more deadly, no matter what. You simply go to organs like the heart.
2. Stabs can pierce an armor relatively much easier that swings. Anyway to piercing an armor with the spear you need first be able to hit! If the enemy is too close you don't have enough space to hit with full of strength. Plus blunt damage can be more deadly for heavy armor like a full plate.
3. Wielding spear is easy and making a nice distance between enemy, but if enemy flanking you, fighting in a narrow place or is too close to you, a spear is a little useless.
4. Lance now in my opinion too short, anyway lance =/= spear.

I thing spears need a little buff, but AI can't use this and maybe animation/hitbox are not correct too.

Spears are actually excellent in a confined space like a corridoor the reach advantage, thrusting speed, power and lack of swing or flanking options for an opponent makes it a great choice.
Lances are certainly way too short a lance that barely extends past the point of the horses head is a complete waste of time.
I gave up with lances for now at least Glaive type weapons are my go to for horseback until they get lances fixed or i find a good mod.

 

[kweassa]

...which, again, brings things back to the need to implement the "range advantage" correctly.

So yeah, I can understand the damage properties and conditions being changed for the sake of MP. No problem.

JUST MAKE PUSH BACK/KEEP AT BAY THE DEFAULT PROPERTY OF THRUSTING SPEARS.

 

[dealman]

Forgot to ask, is this code based on 1.2.1 or 1.3.0? I was assuming it was 1.2.1, but today I'd have to update to 1.3.0 and wonder if there won't be any problems.

It was made for 1.2.1, yes. But it shouldn't have any conflicts with 1.3.0 unless they made any changes to how behaviours are loaded. Did you manage to achieve what you wanted to?

 

[sjblack2014]

It was made for 1.2.1, yes. But it shouldn't have any conflicts with 1.3.0 unless they made any changes to how behaviours are loaded. Did you manage to achieve what you wanted to?

Yes I got the damage tweak done, thanks a lot for that. However, like you, I'm trying to make the a new custom damage model.
I'm also trying to mod couch lancing with no luck.

 

[Nystagmus]

...which, again, brings things back to the need to implement the "range advantage" correctly.

So yeah, I can understand the damage properties and conditions being changed for the sake of MP. No problem.

JUST MAKE PUSH BACK/KEEP AT BAY THE DEFAULT PROPERTY OF THRUSTING SPEARS.

Certainly this. Placing yourself away as far from danger as possible while still being able to threaten your opponent is one of the main points of using a spear. Come to think of it I think it would be nice if using a sword while hugging the opponent would also be difficult/interrupted so really short weapons could benefit from that

 

[Maximum997]

BTW make the "spartan" move - bash+stab actualy useful. Becouse right now AI have time to block this ezpz.