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Discussion about cavalry balance and knock downs
- Thread starter NIN3
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AVRC
Sergeant at Arms
Cav AI improvements are planned right after the AI weapon selection/switching improvements, which are currently in progress.
Yeah I think bump damage should be fairly non-influential in terms of raw damage as it feels frustrating to get randomly hit by a passing cav and lose 15% of your health. As it's part of deciding whether you are bumped/knocked down, perhaps lowering the threshold for that is an option?
I think I noticed that for most horses, the faster horse is often the more manoeuvrable as well (usually the Agile Horse perk). This seems a bit counter-intuitive to me as normally you'd expect a pay off between speed and turning - I've never ridden a horse but at least this is true for cars or running! So maybe there could be perks for fast horses, and for manoeuvrable horses, instead of just "better horse". I also think, as an aside, cav have a bit too much turning capability at their top speed and a bit too little at their slowest, it doesn't seem that different, so you're almost always encouraged to be going top speed (which is easy to do with double tap W).
Others answer below:
What do you think of bump/knockdown frequency right now?: Light bumps could be slightly more frequent, knockdown frequency in general seems fine. I would say that when you do get knocked down though, the time is far too long - as others say, it is a death sentence, and considering its lack of reliability to pull off, feels random and undeserved.
What do you think of the power difference between heavy and light cavs and mounts in general?: I think heavy cav is still very strong due to the armour they gain via perks on their horses. In terms of playability, they could do with more utility from better bumps, but it would need some other balancing if this is added.
Lastly, just as a general cav point I'd reiterate how the way cav push people or simply bounce off other cav, doesn't feel great for either the rider or the people on the ground. I'd love to see foot troops be a lot more immobile to cav, unless bumped or knocked down aka the threshold is reached. This would make cav charges more predictable and reliable for everyone, rather than just cav arriving and suddenly everyone is moved across the ground in all directions as they force their way through.
(cav main pov)
Mostly agree with the general sentiment of others' that cav is in a pretty good place balance wise right now, though I do have some points to make.
1) Cavalry is not maneuverable at high speeds as OGL suggested it is, it feels like turning a tank unless you're riding the camel.
2) Either nerf the camel or make all other light cav move like the camel, it is undeniably the best cav class in the game due to the way it can be maneuvered.
3) Varadin's point about friendly team damage to horses not existing in some cases, like friendly archer fire, should really be looked at and fixed.
4) The big 4 second knockdown has no place in the game, it's extremely unbalanced and isn't fun for anyone when it happens.
5) Make bumps more consistent, sometimes running at a person full speed and hitting him slightly off-center with the horse results in a tiny bump and not even a knockdown.
6) Light bumps should be easier to pull off, not quite was much as it was in Warband, but somewhere in the middle.
7) Heavy cavalry is worth its cost at the moment, the armored horses make a huge difference in survivability.
Couches are still not worth using imo.
A big gripe of mine is how there is no way for a cavalry to force a kill on a caught out archer, the best you can do is distract him while risking damage to your horse or yourself. Hence the wish for easier light bumps/interrupts, being able to bump-hit someone while at lower speeds than currently possible.
tl;dr I'd be wary to change how cavalry works without seeing how it will behave in the new patch. Light bumps should be easier, camel is op, big knockdown is stupid, bumping hitbox is wonky, heavy cav gut, couches bad.
Mostly agree with the general sentiment of others' that cav is in a pretty good place balance wise right now, though I do have some points to make.
1) Cavalry is not maneuverable at high speeds as OGL suggested it is, it feels like turning a tank unless you're riding the camel.
2) Either nerf the camel or make all other light cav move like the camel, it is undeniably the best cav class in the game due to the way it can be maneuvered.
3) Varadin's point about friendly team damage to horses not existing in some cases, like friendly archer fire, should really be looked at and fixed.
4) The big 4 second knockdown has no place in the game, it's extremely unbalanced and isn't fun for anyone when it happens.
5) Make bumps more consistent, sometimes running at a person full speed and hitting him slightly off-center with the horse results in a tiny bump and not even a knockdown.
6) Light bumps should be easier to pull off, not quite was much as it was in Warband, but somewhere in the middle.
7) Heavy cavalry is worth its cost at the moment, the armored horses make a huge difference in survivability.
Couches are still not worth using imo.A big gripe of mine is how there is no way for a cavalry to force a kill on a caught out archer, the best you can do is distract him while risking damage to your horse or yourself. Hence the wish for easier light bumps/interrupts, being able to bump-hit someone while at lower speeds than currently possible.
tl;dr I'd be wary to change how cavalry works without seeing how it will behave in the new patch. Light bumps should be easier, camel is op, big knockdown is stupid, bumping hitbox is wonky, heavy cav gut, couches bad.
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Btw what do people think of the bump consequences for the cav? This topic is only about the penalty for the infantry for hitting someone but there is also a penalty for the horse (speed). I think the speed penalty for hitting someone is quite a bit lower than it was in warband and can be increased a bit imo.
So you can make knocking down stronger but also increasing the speed penalty for the cav to keep it balanced.
So you can make knocking down stronger but also increasing the speed penalty for the cav to keep it balanced.
Not sure how you can support that, you can turn right angle corners at full speed fairly easily by only slightly coming at an angle, without needing to 'brake'.
At really low speed, the cavalry shouldn't bump or push, they get stopped. At low to medium speed, the cavalry should 'stun hit' (where it's a light bump so they can't attack but don't get knocked down), medium to high speed they should knockdown.
I have an idea for that but to be not overpowered needs total overhaul for perks (for all factions). This also makes all perks situational and makes class system less restrictive for all of the classes. ( meaningfull if couched lance is fixed* )
I dont quite understand why ppl say that cav is in a good state. Even Apris stats show that cav is in general stronger than other classes.
One big problem that I have with cav is what was already mentioned in this thread that they do not knockdown teammates. I never understood why. Another one which was mentioned aswell is the time a player is knockdowned.
In general I think cav is more balanced than ever before in EA but it still needs to be less powerful. One thing where I get mad at cav is when one of my mates stops the horse with a spear and we both attack the rider/horse and we just bounce off and do 5 damage. The survavibility of the horse in that case should be close to 0 imo. You need to be punished heavily when running into a spear.
One big problem that I have with cav is what was already mentioned in this thread that they do not knockdown teammates. I never understood why. Another one which was mentioned aswell is the time a player is knockdowned.
In general I think cav is more balanced than ever before in EA but it still needs to be less powerful. One thing where I get mad at cav is when one of my mates stops the horse with a spear and we both attack the rider/horse and we just bounce off and do 5 damage. The survavibility of the horse in that case should be close to 0 imo. You need to be punished heavily when running into a spear.
The moment they knockdown teammates is the moment public playing becomes even more frustrating.
If you're playing in a competitive environment and with your friends is something that can be managed, but imagine playing tdm or normal skirmish where you can't communicate with your team and where people tend not to tryhard, it would just be a mess and infantries in big fights would become pins to take down like it's bowling. I completely agree that a change must be done but that is definetly not the way to do it.
If i recall correctly (been a while) in warband cavalry would kinda get stopped when running on a friendly teammate, like if it ran on a solid object but without getting reared. I honestly would prefer this kind of approach to this problem.
Hey!
Thank you all for your feedback and keep it coming. I just want to jump in here and clear some small things up and kinda update what we will be looking at. So first of all we will see quite a few changes with 1.5.5. Which will be coming soon to live. Those are the cav related changes in there:
Also couch lance changes are already in the works! (It won't be easier, but deal more reasonable (higher) damage than now) .
Additional things (to what was mentioned in OP) we will look at:
Thank you all for your feedback and keep it coming. I just want to jump in here and clear some small things up and kinda update what we will be looking at. So first of all we will see quite a few changes with 1.5.5. Which will be coming soon to live. Those are the cav related changes in there:
- Knight | Heavy Horseman's Kite Shield, Hitpoints increased from 105 to 130
- Courser | Price 140 → 130
- Courser | Throwing Spear stack reduced 2 -> 1
- Raider | Throwing Spear stack reduced 2 -> 1
- Combat Archery changes:
- Will make horse archery / throwing more viable
Also couch lance changes are already in the works! (It won't be easier, but deal more reasonable (higher) damage than now) .
Additional things (to what was mentioned in OP) we will look at:
- Knockdown animation lengths
- We will check and probably change some cavalry perks
- And some individual horses
- Slightly decreasing the bump threshold, since we are removing many extremes with bringing light and heavy cav closer together, charge damage wise
Consistency with light bumps would be nice to get for cav, as of right now I can charge in at different speeds but I cant tell what kind of bump ill get if even any depending on the horse hitting the enemy unit slightly off center. I dont think any cav unit should have a spear shorter than 180, apart from that in happy with were cav are.
Heavy cav are not viable to use on aserai, khuzait and Sturgis just because the light version is only slightly worse while being able to spawn twice. Raising the damage threshold on bumps will greatly help, how long the lances are is nice, but with the poke meta going on right now you are trading safe stabs as cav vs cav for consecutive stabs and a higher base stab damage, while its nice, its not enough to be worth while in team fights and up close cav dueling. The armored horse is still very killable, and with how easy it is to stop cav id suggest dropping heavy cav price to 190 without other changes, so max gold cav players can go double heavy horse.
Heavy cav are not viable to use on aserai, khuzait and Sturgis just because the light version is only slightly worse while being able to spawn twice. Raising the damage threshold on bumps will greatly help, how long the lances are is nice, but with the poke meta going on right now you are trading safe stabs as cav vs cav for consecutive stabs and a higher base stab damage, while its nice, its not enough to be worth while in team fights and up close cav dueling. The armored horse is still very killable, and with how easy it is to stop cav id suggest dropping heavy cav price to 190 without other changes, so max gold cav players can go double heavy horse.
As a spear man and infantry main I cant really talk about how fighting as cav feels but fighting against a cav is a pain in the ass.
Of course Cav should be fast and strong but I think that they are too tanky even when they stand right in front of you. Many horses are so tall that if you swing at them with any weapon but a long two handed / polearm, you will most likely hit the horse instead of the rider while the rider can still easily hit you.
One-handed weapons still do no dmg to standing mounts whichdoes not allow you to punish a Cav players who chose to stick around in a meele. Spears are iffy too. While the long spear is only good vs Cav coming in fast, it is useless for any other purpose. Many Div A teams let the light cav drop the short spear for the inf because it is not as useless as the long one.
Long story short, Mounts tank way to much dmg from1 handed weapons in melee while protecting the rider very well.
Of course Cav should be fast and strong but I think that they are too tanky even when they stand right in front of you. Many horses are so tall that if you swing at them with any weapon but a long two handed / polearm, you will most likely hit the horse instead of the rider while the rider can still easily hit you.
One-handed weapons still do no dmg to standing mounts whichdoes not allow you to punish a Cav players who chose to stick around in a meele. Spears are iffy too. While the long spear is only good vs Cav coming in fast, it is useless for any other purpose. Many Div A teams let the light cav drop the short spear for the inf because it is not as useless as the long one.
Long story short, Mounts tank way to much dmg from1 handed weapons in melee while protecting the rider very well.
I think Horses with barding tank too much, maybe lower armour of them by 10 and give them a few more hitpoints so you don't get the very low damage hits by cutting weapons.
So it is not possible to change stats / animations /features specifically for multiplayer without affecting singleplayer ? Seems pretty harsh and slowing down the devlopment and also making loads of restrictions towards multiplayer since SP is more prioritized.
I'm gonna piggyback a bit what's been said before: Cav may or may not be balanced, but it tends to induce a LOT of frustration to be a footman fighting a cavalryman. Good thing is, knockdown/stuns are a way to fix both balance and frustration, possibly.
I won't try to suggest stupid things as I haven't been playing the last patch much (after binge-playing the previous one), so I can't give an educated enough opinion.
I won't try to suggest stupid things as I haven't been playing the last patch much (after binge-playing the previous one), so I can't give an educated enough opinion.
