It is artificial. But it counters one very artificial hard coded game feature, the death-wish advance of any NPCs towards enemies. A spear is a fast stabbing weapon, however on a distance. To simulate this you had to have NPCs who kept distance, to avoid a piece of steel in their guts. That's not in the game. The artificial solution of the distance problem of mods like "Spear Rework" or similar is in my opinion the best we can do. A physical pushback is not such a great solution because it does not lead to the end of fights.
Most of the infantry spears in the game aren't long enough to cause "not lead to the end of the fight."
Like mentioned, the infantry shieldwall in the game ain't exactly the Macedonian syntagma with a 5~6 meter sarissa. At best it's around 2-meters with the grip around the lower 1/3rd of the shaft. The protrusion when fully extended is barely around 2-meters. Even with a pretty long spear, it's very difficult to land a satisfying/safe couched lance against infantry unless the lance itself starts reaching over 240 cm, because anything shorter and the spear-tip doesn't even really protrude further out than the horse's head.
From a 1v1 standpoint, with no direct increase to the thrust speed the spears are already entirely possible to side-step and evade, not to mention, even if you just block/parry, the recovery is fast enough to attempt to walk inside the range. The current problem is after being blocked/parried/shielded, the distance where the opponent walks in like 1 or 2 steps and the spear is at the "nope. no attack animation canceling" threshold. What the pushback does (or will do) is
extend and reset the range to the point where if the opponent block/parry/shields the spear and walks in, the next spear strike will land a hit and cause animation cancel -- but with any kind of weapon that's at least more than 100~120 long (plenty of one-handed swords, almost all of other, shorter polearms), it's a range enough to attempt an attack.
With the pushback and extended distance, from the opponent's perspective, unlike before the spear will most certainly land a hit hard. You can't just keep blocking and walking in because THAT'S what's gonna cause the "unending combat." So in order to win, you block the spear, and then immediately lunge inside at a dicey distance, with the next spear already primed and initiating. Either you hit with the tip of your weapon, or the spear hits you. Or, you anticipate the next spear will attempt to push you immediately back again, so try a side-step this time. If you deem all of this is too risky, and just stay at the distance, and the combat "doesn't end" because you find it difficult to go in and don't want to take any risks -- because it's not easy-peasy like it was before --
IS THIS NOT EXACTLY HOW IT SHOULD BE?
Of course, if someone has a lot shorter weapon, it's gonna feel pretty "unending" since no matter how well you block/shield/parry, your weapon won't be long enough to attempt to land an attack before the next spear thrust (
oh gee.. maybe that's what it feels like when you're holding a spear and the opponent has a shield, currently?) -- but again, is this not exactly how it should be as well?
...
From a group formation standpoint, the spear only targets one person at a time. It's gonna keep at bay SOME of the attackers coming in (as opposed to NONE previously), but some will still walk in and attempt to attack, and do some damage. The "can't close in at all" problem will only happen against two-handed pikemen with actually a lot longer range. Oh gee, so difficult to counter. But maybe that's why there's this thing called "bows/crossbows" in the game.
BTW with "Spear Rework" you can kill a NPC with a shield. I use RBM AI module, so the NPCs are generally block world champions. You have to really strain yourself to get them when they lower the shield, but because of the faster speed and higher close distance damage of spears it's possible. Try it, it's a bad surprise for the pesky sword-and-shield or mace-and-shield adversaries in the arena. I would say it's an almost even fight if you have the spear and shield, although I have to admit that the player with sword or mace has a slight advantage against NPCs with spear and shield (tyi, I'm not very good at combat, I cannot block with weapons and I never play MP). It's also hilarious to kill twohanded NPCs with stabs from the distance.
I've tried it long ago, and deleted it long ago, because that's not a spear I'm wielding.
I already told you the mod does not address the main problem at all -- the distance factor. All it does is make spears OP by making them 2-meter long weapons that operate like a dagger. People disenfranchised with how the spears operate in this game -- or rather, people who really like the spear as a weapon -- aren't complaining just because it's hard to fight with them. They're complaining because the spear can't fight like a spear. And like mentioned, the main strengths of the spear is the ability to enforce a reach advantage.
How does the spear rework and RBM address that? ---
It doesn't.
When someone walks in complaining their tank is not viable in the game because it's too fragile and the cannon is too weak, you don't slap on a wing and make it a fighter jet and claim that's fixed anything. Oh sure, giving it wings is going to make it a lot more "viable" in the game, but is that viability done the right way? I think not.
That's what the current "reworks" are.
