Discussion about cavalry balance and knock downs

[Forsee]

Have you played Bannerlord recently? Horses literally die with one axe throw and spears became very dangerous. Furthermore don't forget that its the most expensive troop, its supposed to be slightly stronger.

It is not. The idea of higher cav cost is that it lives longer than other troops on average, and does more impact during it's life, so it should have less spawns. All classes supposed to be balanced and equally userful. Having 300hp armored horse usually prevents you from dying in situations other classes have no chance to survive, and it has no downsides. Every class can die from pila or axe headshot and riders are not an exception. The thing that you are only getting dismounted from a direct throwing axe hit, and not getting killed, already gives you a strong advantage over other classes. Also you have a huge advantage of choosing your fighting area, for example if you see an enemy trying to throw franceska at your horse, you have an option to not get close to that guy so he would most likely miss his throw. You can do something else meanwhile.

If you are dying on cav alot, that's all your mistakes. Good cav players are always have the most impact in the game and they are not complaining about bad game balance, huge throwing damage or unkillable archers. Some things can be annoying as a natural counter, but it is as it should be, every class, even cav, should have downsides

 

[WhiteEyedSh4rk]

Yes, and that's why I am still complaing about it. The same issue that has been going on for 9 months. Spears are especially useless on TDM, you might stop a horse but you won't kill it. I get your point, It is obviously stronger and more expensive but it is out of proportion to all other classes and that is a issue.

So tell me then, how are you supposed to kill anyone if your hore´se would get killed immediately as soon as you come close? It is not out of proportion at all. It was in the beta, but they got nerfed on all ends. Spears stop horses usually very easily, (especially with that new feature where you press x), horses can get onehit from all throwing weapons and even bows, their agility got reduced and so on. They only have an advantage if the enemy is unprepaired, which they usually aren't, because you can hear the horses. If they would be as strong as you say, everyone would just choose cav in every game, which is not the case at all.

It is not. The idea of higher cav cost is that it lives longer than other troops on average, and does more impact during it's life, so it should have less spawns.

Having more hp and beeing able to quickly go from one place to another (for catching flags or running away from difficult combat situations) makes them "stronger" thus the less spawns.

Having 300hp armored horse usually prevents you from dying in situations other classes have no chance to survive, and it has no downsides. Every class can die from pila or axe headshot and riders are not an exception. The thing that you are only getting dismounted from a direct throwing axe hit, and not getting killed, already gives you a strong advantage over other classes.

If you don't run into anyone with spears, you might be able to get away quickly, yes. But it has huge downsides. Inf allmost allways have shields and that makes it easier to block off throwing weapons, while cav might have a shield too sometimes, but you cant protect your horse at all, its a huge unprotected target area. Its also hard to take cover with it. Getting dismounted is pretty much a death sentence. You lay on the ground for 3-4 seconds and need to change weapon first (since cav mostly equipps spears).

Also you have a huge advantage of choosing your fighting area, for example if you see an enemy trying to throw franceska at your horse, you have an option to not get close to that guy so he would most likely miss his throw. You can do something else meanwhile.

Yes, you can choose the place to fight, that is the big advantage of cav and why they are more expensive. Cav having that advantage is just a given. Throwing weapons dont work at far range, there won't be anyone aiming at you from the distance. They will use it when you come close to get them with a spear, which you kind of have to and it will take them exactly one second to aim and throw at you. They also most likely wont miss, sonce a mounted cav is a pretty big target and the head of the horse is literally right infront.

If you are dying on cav alot, that's all your mistakes. Good cav players are always have the most impact in the game and they are not complaining about bad game balance, huge throwing damage or unkillable archers. Some things can be annoying as a natural counter, but it is as it should be, every class, even cav, should have downsides

Cav has the most impact because they can go quickly capture the flags and stab people from behind while they are fighting. Again, that is their big advantage and why they are more expensive. Of course there are people who are really good at it and don't complain, because they learned to stay away from throwing weapons and spears and know when and where to act. This has nothing to do with balance though, they are just really skilled players. Cav should have downsides and it has, like every other troop.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

Horses got nerfed enough. When playing cav you already get headshot by throwing weapons fairly frequently and it became pretty hard to escape infantary with lances. If cav would be any slower, they would be completely useless in my opinion.

The supposed squishyness of horses you are describing is greatly overexaggerated. You still have greater survivability than every foot class in the game while mounted on a heavy horse.

Furthermore, my suggestion which you shot down to decrease horse speed in order to generate more consistent bumping would actually serve to make sure you get 1 shot by throwing weapons less. The way speed calculations are handled lead to entities taking a multiplier to their damage based on the speed at which they are going. Going at the insane speeds horses are currently capable of is actually whats causing the throwing weapon damage to be so massive against them in the first place. Please dont lecture me on balance or damage without understanding the equations happening in the background to make things the way they are. You can turn on the advanced damage logs to see the multiplier in action and how much extra damage going mach 10 is actually doing to your horse.

Bottom line is that cav in Warband was Borderline OP anyway, and Bannerlord cav goes much faster with more or equal armor. Proportionally slowing down the horses would make gameplay both more consistent and balanced.

Edit: I should add that my point of view is that of a Bannerlord cav main. If I have to pull out the stats from the last tournament to show just how disproportionately well cavalry are doing I certainly can. The class needs some tuning and this thread is an excellent idea by the devs and a great place to lay the groundwork.

 

[LANDALORE]

I think that both of your explanations are completely wrong. But both things have to be fixed even if you are right. The horse should have been stopped in that exact case, and a 2h axe should deal more damage in that exact case. Nomatter what happened there from an engine standpoint.

I mean, if you dont hit the front of the horse you dont stop them. Id rather not have the front half of cav to be the rear hitbox, in fine with the front but we can already stop cav from the side and in some cases behind, the hitboxes not being consistent is the biggest issue.

Why would the haft of the axe not glance? Everything hits you too easy anyways, glancing is almost non existent as is, you just had bad swings. Dont argue about things being broken when you cant even swing properly.

 

[Zoonanay]

Spears stop horses usually very easily, (especially with that new feature where you press x),

I haven't seen someone successfully use brace in an actual skirmish match. Kudos to anyone who has.

horses can get onehit from all throwing weapons and even bows, their agility got reduced and so on. They only have an advantage if the enemy is unprepaired, which they usually aren't, because you can hear the horses. If they would be as strong as you say, everyone would just choose cav in every game, which is not the case at all.

If a horseman can killed a prepared enemy, then there's not much point of other classes. Cavalry's current strength is being unkillable without velocity bonus' and being able to backstab. Backstab still requires someone to distract them, whether it be infantry or archer.

If you don't run into anyone with spears, you might be able to get away quickly, yes. But it has huge downsides. Inf allmost allways have shields and that makes it easier to block off throwing weapons, while cav might have a shield too sometimes, but you cant protect your horse at all, its a huge unprotected target area. Its also hard to take cover with it. Getting dismounted is pretty much a death sentence. You lay on the ground for 3-4 seconds and need to change weapon first (since cav mostly equipps spears).

I've seen numerous Druzhinnik threads talk about its larger shield option. A sidewards facing cavalry is almost impervious to damage, the shield covers the mid-section horse and rider, whilst enabling easy turning of head/back to reduce velocity damage of an incoming attack.

If dismounting truly were a 4 second delay, I'd see no need to adjust it or maybe even cavalry as a whole. But in reality, you can still glitch yourself into blocking/changing weapon after one second, this glitch has lasted over a year and is now a "feature" unless removed.

Yes, you can choose the place to fight, that is the big advantage of cav and why they are more expensive. Cav having that advantage is just a given. Throwing weapons dont work at far range, there won't be anyone aiming at you from the distance. They will use it when you come close to get them with a spear, which you kind of have to and it will take them exactly one second to aim and throw at you. They also most likely wont miss, sonce a mounted cav is a pretty big target and the head of the horse is literally right infront.

The infantry
1) needs to see you,
2) needs to keep an eye on you to see when you commit (horse audio cues are still bugged)
3) need to disengage any current threat they're facing when you decide to charge
4) needs to draw their throwing weapon
5) needs to aim their weapon accurately in a fraction of a second.

"It will take them exactly one second to aim and throw at you" sounds like it's as easy as stabbing a spear, it requires aim, awareness, timing and control to pull that off.

Also, "one-shotting" horses only really applies to light horses.
Pila and Ash Throwing Spear are only available to non-heavy classes usually in exchange for a shield.
Khuzait Throwing Spear is one of the only good things about Khuzait inf.
And not only do Fransceska's and throwing axes do cut damage, which means they'd need over 800 raw damage to "one-shot" a heavy armoured horse, but they'll be weaker next patch.

To top all of that off, it needs the rider to add 5-10 m/s velocity to even reach those numbers. A regularly thrown pila does 120 to a heavy horses neck/head.

If your heavy horse is getting one-shot, you're the one riding it to its death, just ride slower and come to a full-stop/turn if someone throws at you.

 

[Aprikosenmann]

If dismounting truly were a 4 second delay, I'd see no need to adjust it or maybe even cavalry as a whole. But in reality, you can still glitch yourself into blocking/changing weapon after one second, this glitch has lasted over a year and is now a "feature" unless removed.

Thats an interesting topic. Block instantly after being dismounted is actually a feature. It's not a fair feature tho
I reported it here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...h-shield-while-laying-on-ground-video.430943/

Also the fact that riders glich into objects while dismounted makes them unhittable alot of the time. But I don't think they will fix it.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/riders-glich-into-all-objects-when-falling-off-a-horse-which-makes-them-invincible.436214/

 

[Horatius]

hitboxes in general arent very good, comes down to netcode I guess

Which they are not going to fix, because "it is hard to reproduce" ~ MardA.

Btw shouldn't the difference between neck/head and body hits on cav be made smaller? Like you can indeed do 180 damage to a horse with a throwing axe to the face but on the body it is often no more than 40 which is kinda useless. If you make head/neck shots less damaging but body shots a bit more this also nerfes the archers by just headshotting the horse when it comes around a corner.

 

[Zoonanay]

Thats an interesting topic. Block instantly after being dismounted is actually a feature. It's not a fair feature tho
I reported it here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...h-shield-while-laying-on-ground-video.430943/

Also the fact that riders glich into objects while dismounted makes them unhittable alot of the time. But I don't think they will fix it.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/riders-glich-into-all-objects-when-falling-off-a-horse-which-makes-them-invincible.436214/

Ah, thanks for the clarifaction, had wondered.

Reading from the thread, it seems recovery time is determined by direction of fall, strange considering a horseman will almost always dismount forwards unless reversing/static. Though I suppose if velocity did determine it, slowing moving cavalry would be even safer than before.

I'd be curious to know if this feature applies to infantry knockdowns as well, I dont recall blocking from knockdown even when bumped from behind. I notice it more often with dismounted cavalry than knockdown infantry but perhaps that's just infantry bias speaking.

 

[Forsee]

Just look at the last 3 DP screens

Spoiler: screens

Look at the score difference between cav and all other players. This clearly represents the current state of the game balance. Of course DragonKing and Relexan both are very good cav players, but today all cav mains, even on the lower tiers showing us superb scores and good impact in each game.

Im sure everyone understand the reasons cav being that good, but anyway I will sum this up here:
1. Throwings deal too small damage, heavy inf has no throwings.
2. Archers are weak, they can do nothing against cav running at you, shooting speed is just too slow
3. Bumps and knockdowns works too often, they are much more consistent than on previous patch
4. It is too easy to dodge spears on cav

I know alot of cav players will disagree with some of these statements, but don't take it out of context, it all just works together.

I don't think I am the one to offer the solution, cause I don't even play cav, but I don't want to make this post to be just a cry, so I can at least offer to make rears more consistent somehow, or to make horses less fragile to the point where inf (like 2 players hitting that horse) can actually kill it on a single rear

 

[Hax.]

So tell me then, how are you supposed to kill anyone if your hore´se would get killed immediately as soon as you come close? It is not out of proportion at all. It was in the beta, but they got nerfed on all ends. Spears stop horses usually very easily, (especially with that new feature where you press x), horses can get onehit from all throwing weapons and even bows, their agility got reduced and so on. They only have an advantage if the enemy is unprepaired, which they usually aren't, because you can hear the horses. If they would be as strong as you say, everyone would just choose cav in every game, which is not the case at all.

Simply you use the speed and damage advantage on horses to kill people, you don't need Speedy Gonzales and additional 400 hp to spam stab everyone to death and leave with a kd of 5.0 or even higher, this is disproportionate in every aspect. Throwing weapons against horses were nerfed to ****. As for example throwing axes do barely any effective damage anymore. Spears do stop horses but does not kill it and thats the issue. Once you stopped that horse you won't be able to kill it unless you got a menavlion or heavy glaive, else the rider just lifts off again and stabs you in the back afterwards.
For your last part, this is exactly what is happening for months now. Take a look at any match taking place with a heavy cav faction: everyone is going for cav. Take a look at TDM matches on khuzait or aserai and count how many people are using them, I can tell you it's atleast 50% and this definitely does not contribute to a better player experience.

 

[hoonii]

Just look at the last 3 DP screens

Spoiler: screens

Look at the score difference between cav and all other players. This clearly represents the current state of the game balance. Of course DragonKing and Relexan both are very good cav players, but today all cav mains, even on the lower tiers showing us superb scores and good impact in each game.

Im sure everyone understand the reasons cav being that good, but anyway I will sum this up here:
1. Throwings deal too small damage, heavy inf has no throwings.
2. Archers are weak, they can do nothing against cav running at you, shooting speed is just too slow
3. Bumps and knockdowns works too often, they are much more consistent than on previous patch
4. It is too easy to dodge spears on cav

I know alot of cav players will disagree with some of these statements, but don't take it out of context, it all just works together.

I don't think I am the one to offer the solution, cause I don't even play cav, but I don't want to make this post to be just a cry, so I can at least offer to make rears more consistent somehow, or to make horses less fragile to the point where inf (like 2 players hitting that horse) can actually kill it on a single rear

I have also noticed that especially axes are nerfed to oblivion and does like 20-30 damage to a rider that is charging at you or 30 damage headshot to a berserker. Maybe they have been nerfed a bit too much, their damage can be increased by 5 or 10.
Heavy infantry doesn't deserve throwing weapons imo, at least not the good ones. If you really want you can give them a sharp stone and stick attached together but don't give them the good javelins, that's skirmisher class' job.
I also played against dragonking and he is a legit good cavalry player it is completely normal that he carries his team because cavalry makes the best impact on infantry and we can see clearly relexan did not perform exactly too well, sometimes you're just high on adrenaline or something and carry the whole team but I've seen dragonking not performing too good sometimes as well. Also maybe he was stealing some kills as well lmao cus 2nd screenshot his team barely has any kills.
Cavalry is good atm but not op or anything that is what kids that play only team deathmatch will say regularly. Also cav is SUPPOSED to be superior to other classes imo because 200 gold cost, only one heavy spawn and if you risk it only one cavalry spawn so they should be strong compared to others.

 

[Zoonanay]

Cavalry is good atm but not op or anything that is what kids that play only team deathmatch will say regularly. Also cav is SUPPOSED to be superior to other classes imo because 200 gold cost, only one heavy spawn and if you risk it only one cavalry spawn so they should be strong compared to others.

It is worth noting double heavy infantry spawn is 320 gold, whilst one heavy cavalry and one light cavalry spawn is 330. For that equal cost, I'd be definatley placing bets on the double cavalry spawn to have more effect than the double heavy infantry spawn. (Given equal player skill).

If Heavy cav's price goes up anymore it will relegate it to snowball or redundancy. So I think the only path is nerfing its stats, as right now it feels medium risk-high reward, when it should be high risk-high reward.

The rider's horse is simply too safe, the rider feels exposed enough, but when cav mains are using their horses head to block attacks from infantry or letting their horse get hit to trade strikes with an infantry, there's something severly wrong in the classes' design.

 

[hoonii]

The rider's horse is simply too safe, the rider feels exposed enough, but when cav mains are using their horses head to block attacks from infantry or letting their horse get hit to trade strikes with an infantry, there's something severly wrong in the classes' design.

No cav main is dumb enough to get in melee with more than 1 infantry, maybe even a single one if he's a good one. You're not supposed to duel infantry you're supposed to support your infantry and intercept archers. Heavy cav is durable enough but light horses are just so bad in terms of tanking damage cus they don't have armor, because of that you don't tank with light horses, you stay hidden and wait for the melee to happen so you can help the infantry.

Heavy cav have their horses heavily armored and guess what armor is made for, mitigating the damage, especially effective against swords. Pierce damage counters armor that's why spears, bows and throwables are so strong against cav because they do pierce damage. A decent infantry with a spear can very well duel a cav and win.

 

[OneOrThrEe]

1.
This;

3.Horse team bumps , you charge into team mate and you literally push him so he can "walk" faster. Just make horses do same damage and bumps/knocdowns on teammates to force cav players to be more careful in teamfights. One of the thing i loved in cRPG mod in Warband when a cav charges and bumps both teammate and enemy.

Team dmg with horse bumps should be 100% the same for teamdmg and normal.
2.
And also put a cooldown on how much a cav can spam WWWWW SSSS WSWSWSWS so they don't drift with horses.It makes them lot harder to shoot + it looks ridiculous
3.
Why can a cav player block fully with shield when they get thrown off a horse ?!?!?! Not only that but you can't even kick them...
they can bump a player knock them for 3 seconds make them free kill.
But when they fall they turn into this snake shaped entity that can block no problem and get up at the same time..
Not to mention half the time they're glitched in a wall so you can't even hit them
4.
Make some shields impossible to use on a horse. Like vlandian xbow shield and sturgian bigger shields (Like it was in warband)

 

[Zoonanay]

No cav main is dumb enough to get in melee with more than 1 infantry, maybe even a single one if he's a good one. You're not supposed to duel infantry you're supposed to support your infantry and intercept archers. Heavy cav is durable enough but light horses are just so bad in terms of tanking damage cus they don't have armor, because of that you don't tank with light horses, you stay hidden and wait for the melee to happen so you can help the infantry.

Heavy cav have their horses heavily armored and guess what armor is made for, mitigating the damage, especially effective against swords. Pierce damage counters armor that's why spears, bows and throwables are so strong against cav because they do pierce damage. A decent infantry with a spear can very well duel a cav and win.

As you say, it is more efficient to wait in the wings until opponents are distracted for cavalry to strike, as it should be. I don't dispute that. What I do find dispute with is cavalry being able to trot through a groupfight almost unchallengable and backstab to their heart's content.

If an infantry and heavy cavalry fight a duel, it will most likely end in a stalemate.

- The rider can stop-start their horse endlessly, at some point the infantry either stabs for the horse, or the rider, or blocks.
- If they stab at the horse, the rider slows and stabs in return trading damage.
- If they stab at the rider, the rider blocks and goes for a bump opportunity with the horse.

I don't really see what alternative the infantry has other than just blocking here.

Spoiler: Side Note - Inconsitent Spears

On a side note, the inconsistent hit boxes with spears on horseback means it can be hard for the infantry to tell when the rider has or hasn't turned their spear on them and stabbed accurately, making the default reaction to block rather than risk a 50/50 trade you can't even telegraph properly.

I think light cavalry might need a slight armour , manueverbility and perhaps acceleration/deceleration buff. But with 1.5 and throwables being far less common an occurence, it's already a good step in the right direction.

They feel like you have to tactically decide your pathing and really make the most of opportunities presented to you rather than being spoilt for choice. They feel high risk-high reward rather than pre 1.5's super risk- high reward.

Infantry's only saving grace is the randomness of low-speed rearing, which with 1.5 is far less common. With that gone, and throwables taken from heavy infantry. Cavalry needs significant changes, or months of further inbalance will await.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

I don't think you need to add team damage to bumps, this is a recipe for chaos in groupfights and will be extremely annoying. The movement of people when getting pushed by cav, but not bumped, just needs toned down. It's a total mess and is an indirect buff to cav since they are not hindered by foottroops, instead just pushing through (assume this is basically the reason so SP cav don't get stuck). Just have 3 states for ground troops when it comes to cav: Immobile, Bumped, Fully Knocked down.

Cav should also be slowed down and made to be hindered slightly by ground variation. Currently they have 2 speeds: top speed, wherein they go lightning fast, drift like NASCAR across the ground unless literally going up a hill, or they hit a perpendicular wall and so actually get stopped. They should be slowed down much more by slightly uneven ground or going slightly uphill (for example in Trading Post going up either side to A, feels like no hindrance at all to cav going at full speed, which makes them appear unrealistic as they float from even ground to uphill then back to even ground).

 

[hoonii]

As you say, it is more efficient to wait in the wings until opponents are distracted for cavalry to strike, as it should be. I don't dispute that. What I do find dispute with is cavalry being able to trot through a groupfight almost unchallengable and backstab to their heart's content.

If an infantry and heavy cavalry fight a duel, it will most likely end in a stalemate.

- The rider can stop-start their horse endlessly, at some point the infantry either stabs for the horse, or the rider, or blocks.
- If they stab at the horse, the rider slows and stabs in return trading damage.
- If they stab at the rider, the rider blocks and goes for a bump opportunity with the horse.

I don't really see what alternative the infantry has other than just blocking here.

Spoiler: Side Note - Inconsitent Spears

On a side note, the inconsistent hit boxes with spears on horseback means it can be hard for the infantry to tell when the rider has or hasn't turned their spear on them and stabbed accurately, making the default reaction to block rather than risk a 50/50 trade you can't even telegraph properly.

I think light cavalry might need a slight armour , manueverbility and perhaps acceleration/deceleration buff. But with 1.5 and throwables being far less common an occurence, it's already a good step in the right direction.

They feel like you have to tactically decide your pathing and really make the most of opportunities presented to you rather than being spoilt for choice. They feel high risk-high reward rather than pre 1.5's super risk- high reward.

Infantry's only saving grace is the randomness of low-speed rearing, which with 1.5 is far less common. With that gone, and throwables taken from heavy infantry. Cavalry needs significant changes, or months of further inbalance will await.

Well wandering about as a light cav is super high risk because you risk getting shot by archers.
I mentioned inconsistent spears a lot of times, they should be fixed because it is a very annoying thing when playing as infantry I know.
If a heavy cav is riding at medium speed and gets reared by a spear, its horse will receive around 40-80 damage depending on where you hit it. That's pretty enough for a single stab imo because when reared you can get in the rear spam of death if you fail to dodge it. If you fully brace your spear when stabbing it will do around 50 damage (I believe) when both horse and infantry is standing still. That, imo is balanced.
Archers are super good counters against cav, especially the xbows, when the said cav is in melee helping his infantry, because it leaves him vulnerable to archer fire. Or if you're in equal numbers or more than enemy in melee one infantry can stand out as designated spear guy and keep the cav away, these said spear infantries are super effective against repelling any cav attack, considering there is only one cav. Javelins were ok against cav in terms of damage but axes were so ****ing stupidly over powered they definitely needed a nerf. Removing throwables from heavy infantry shines skirmishers in that category as they should be, it is their specialty and heavy infantry should not have the same javelins as designated skirmisher class because even without a spear they would have a counter against cav.
If everyone has a counter against cav(archers, javelins and axes, spears), then only choice of cavalry is to wait for melee to happen and even then people can just instantly turn their attention towards the cav and focus on killing it. IMO cav is still fine despite the removal of throwables, that is what it should've been from the start.

 

[OneOrThrEe]

I don't think you need to add team damage to bumps, this is a recipe for chaos in groupfights and will be extremely annoying. The movement of people when getting pushed by cav, but not bumped, just needs toned down. It's a total mess and is an indirect buff to cav since they are not hindered by foottroops

It's a huge deal for competative play.
It's too early to expect something like this. BUT
- In a competative game team damage should be 100% and there SHOULD be a gamemod called maybe "Competative Skirmish" with that kind of stuff maybe more but no need to complicate this.

- Then you can have norma/casual Skirmish mode that has less team damage ( Like the Skirmish we have now).

Right now there is a big mess because of Singleplayer +Captain mode +Skirmish mode +Siege are all being treated as one thing ( With exact same unit roosters and gear and PRICES).
They all function very differently and should have different mechanics. Period.

-Untill this seperation comes into play there will always be some gamemode that suffers greatly with the state of gameplay mechanics.

 

[Zoonanay]

Well wandering about as a light cav is super high risk because you risk getting shot by archers.
I mentioned inconsistent spears a lot of times, they should be fixed because it is a very annoying thing when playing as infantry I know.
If a heavy cav is riding at medium speed and gets reared by a spear, its horse will receive around 40-80 damage depending on where you hit it. That's pretty enough for a single stab imo because when reared you can get in the rear spam of death if you fail to dodge it. If you fully brace your spear when stabbing it will do around 50 damage (I believe) when both horse and infantry is standing still. That, imo is balanced.
Archers are super good counters against cav, especially the xbows, when the said cav is in melee helping his infantry, because it leaves him vulnerable to archer fire. Or if you're in equal numbers or more than enemy in melee one infantry can stand out as designated spear guy and keep the cav away, these said spear infantries are super effective against repelling any cav attack, considering there is only one cav. Javelins were ok against cav in terms of damage but axes were so ****ing stupidly over powered they definitely needed a nerf. Removing throwables from heavy infantry shines skirmishers in that category as they should be, it is their specialty and heavy infantry should not have the same javelins as designated skirmisher class because even without a spear they would have a counter against cav.
If everyone has a counter against cav(archers, javelins and axes, spears), then only choice of cavalry is to wait for melee to happen and even then people can just instantly turn their attention towards the cav and focus on killing it. IMO cav is still fine despite the removal of throwables, that is what it should've been from the start.

Other than the light cavalry having less armour, I don't imagine they're any more vulnerable than a heavy cavalry. That seems more a problem with archers (particularly crossbows) being overtuned.

Spoiler: Archers

I do think archers are overtuned, they do too much damage at too fast a fire rate. However, if they're nerfed they'll become almost completely irrelevant to the competitive scene. They'll never succeed in a 6v6 format, having an archer is too significant of a deficit to your frontline for it to consistently play off.

They need time to develop opportunities and angles once the groupfight starts, with seven team mates they might find that opportunity, with five much less so. This is my biggest problem with the move from 8v8 in Warband.

I haven't played since testing the 1.5 patch, but I found 40-60 damage much more common on a medium speed horse. I don't think I've ever seen 80 damage to a heavy horse unless at top speed. I found 20 and 30 to be a far more common damage for a standing horse as well (although granted if a horse is standing you'd stab for the rider regardless).

For me I always compare Bannerlord's comp scene with Warband's. In Warband I see infantry determined gameplay with cavalry and archers having decisive impact.

In Bannerlord, I see cavalry determined gameplay with infantry decisive impact and some archer impact. Matches are won and lost by the effectiveness of cavalry, then infantry, then archers. EU and NA tournament results conclusively support this.

- The ineffectiveness of cutting weapons on heavy horses.
- Cavalry's inconsitent hitbox (and thus rearing).
- Relative velocities impact on melee weapon damage.

Unless all these issues are addressed, I believe cavalry will continue to dominate at both competitive and non-competitive levels. I don't think the MP team has enough resources currently to tackle issues so fundamentally linked to the games engine and format, although I hope to be proven wrong.

 

[KSHMR]

@NIN3 Very good content and thanks for sharing this with us. I like the idea and generally think that we are on the right track here.

One thing I've been meaning to ask, what is your opinion on allowing friendly bumps and knockdowns, be it so in either in casual or competitive mode or both.

p.s. I for one believe that allowing friendly bumps and knockdowns would be a great balance and add immersion too