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Ballacraine 说:

Here is an odd one & it is repeatable for me.

I am taking part in a big seige at Dhirim.
We have taken the walls & streets & are in the small inner keep.

If I get KOed at this point & click 'Yes' to retreat, nothing happens.

点击展开...

This. It happened while sieging Praven as well. I was assisting other members of my faction in taking it, so I wasn't the "leading" sieger, don't know if that's a necessary reproduction step or not.

Naturally I was still the only non-weak troop in the actual keep-battle, despite my side having hundreds of troops left over, so after we got our asses handed to us by a bunch of armor-clad jerks outnumbering us 2:1, I'm just stuck laying there until I ctrl-alt-del the game shut.

Spent about 2 hours trying to take this city. Frankly I would gladly just fail, get captured, whatever, as I'd at least have some experience to show for it, but being utterly stuck and having to shut down the game is kind of a serious glitch I think.

That glitch where the kid was shooting through a wall clearly needs to be fixed, and no one should exploit bugs like that. That kid should've been vote-kicked or vote-banned.

On the other hand: 'Turtling' and taking a VALID defensible position is a perfectly valid strategy. If a team can get organized enough to have enough of their people go to a fortifiable spot and hold it, then it should take some organization on the other side to beat it. Making a zig-zagging charge to dodge arrows while blocking beats an archer. If you're outnumbered 3:1 by archers and they manage to get enough lucky hits or manage to break your shield before you get to them, then you should've brought more guys.

edit: Against lone archers specifically, I'd recommend bringing a slot of throwing weapons. Close in with your shield up, then when you're close enough you can start tossing throwing axes or javelins like mad-- throwing weapons can fire faster than an archer, the next projectile pretty much magically appears in your hand the instant you throw the first one. Plus you can equip a shield while holding the throwing weapon, so as soon as the 'camper' gets ready to fire at you, you can block.

I think it's okay that a braced shield can take an arrow without interrupting you overly much. You can't actually ready an attack while bracing a shield so it's not what I'd consider overpowered.

Sure you can just hit them with your horse, and if they're already damaged you could even kill them that way, but you'd have to take about five passes and they'd be foolish not to just aim for the horse and knock it down if you're riding that close.

Of course if a horseman zigzags or maintains his distance, even the horse is really hard to hit, but that's fair enough. They get to choose their battles, like I said that's the big advantage of cavalry-- it also means they're adept at pack tactics, they can move to assist their allies much quicker than non-mounted troops.

That's why my thoughts that horses aren't overpowered comes with the caveat that it has to be a proper map. Cavalry in Warbands can charge up a pretty steep hill and still kill with one lance hit, it's not like regular M&B where you need to couch your lance and move straight along almost level ground to get a one-hit kill. That one random map that has gently sloping hills isn't as good as the hand-made maps, which all have terrain / buildings vs cavalry that adjust the odds to varying degrees in the infantry's favor and allow them to win against a pure cavalry force so long as they use sound tactics and are of equivalent skills.

Kev: Khergit horse archers are good at being elusive and surviving a long time if they're very cautious, but if they're close enough to fire accurately they're about close enough to get hit with thrown weapons. If they stop their horses so that they can fire accurately, they're very vulnerable to return fire. Taking out their horses first is also a good tactic, since said horses are a much bigger target. On foot, a Khergit has inferior weapons, armor, and shields compared to any other faction-- their only faction advantage is they have horse archers, nobody else does. For more on the effectiveness of Horse Archers, look up Genghis Khan. Mongol horse archers are basically why the Great Wall of China was built.

Since it's not considered a fair tactic in a game to just circle around a village or castle and wait for those inside to starve and surrender, they're pretty toned down in Mount & Blade.

If you're squaring off against a lone horseman, and you're an archer, I don't think you should always die.

If they try to couch their lance and don't think to shield themselves when you've obviously got an arrow nocked and are ready to fire straight at them, they are a bit foolish and they should get hurt. Badly, so that they stop being so foolish.

I don't think there's a kind of horseman on any side that doesn't get some sort of shield as a free piece of kit. If they're expecting to fight archers they have no excuse not to bring one with them, and if they aren't actively making an attack they should be shielding themselves. Heck, most cavalry I see that go up against archers have two shields, so they can't be shot in the back, either.

'Arrows beat cavalry charge' sounds bad, because a cavalry charge, in military parlance, isn't one guy and one horse. With the advantage of mobility, you should either a) somewhat outnumber your foes, or b) find other foes to attack. Cavalry can choose their battles, that's a pretty big advantage.

I'm not really on the 'horses are overpowered' bandwagon, I think on most maps they're balanced okay. On that random map where all the hills have a smooth entrance an egress point and anyone, anywhere can be charged by cavalry and instantly killed, you're damn right cavalry are overpowered, that's why people generally hate that map. I saw Vaegirs try an archery-dominated strategy against Swadia or Rhodok or something on that map, the other guys went all cavalry and won 7 rounds in a row. Going half spearman and half archer didn't work either. The Vaegirs, rather than just whine, switched to cavalry, spent their gold on the best armor, gear, and horses they could afford, and won. Problem solved. Everyone playing the same class in order to solve a balance problem isn't ideal, but it works until the server switches maps.

e) And I think the original poster being more afraid of an infantry moving slowly across a field than he is of an enemy horseman is just because shields are a bit wank right now. You can watch an arrow go straight into somebody's exposed leg or foot, and 90% of the time it does nothing if he's blocking. But if you shoot straight at his shield and he isn't blocking for a milisecond, he takes it to the chest. It seems like to me that a blocking shield 1.4x its actual size, in terms of blocking factor, as they appear, such that a huge rhodok shield is actually a perfect defense from the front. Of course if you have throwing weapons you've got a chance of breaking it, but arrows.. probably not, definitely not if he's zigzagging and dodging some of your arrows, which he would if he's smart.

I see that as not being critically unbalanced simply because Rhodok crossbowmen fire slower than other factions, and their bolts being a bit more accurate and harder hitting (in the case of heavy and siege crossbows) doesn't count for much if the enemy is aware of them and zigzagging as they approach. The Rhodok crossbowmen also can't take good advantage of duel-shielding 'tortoise-style', unless they want to have no melee weapon and just shield-block with their right hand empty. So, the Rhodok are a bit deficient in ranged combat, and therefore it's not so bad, in my opinion, that they're mostly arrow-proof.

Let's get this thread back on track shall we?

Yes, a push-style Conquest mode where objectives become capturable after taking nearby objectives would be better, in my opinion, than the current system where any objective can be captured at any time.

But I still think it would be wise to have multiple objectives open at any given time. If it's utterly linear (you go from point A to B to C to D) then the only viable tactic would be to get the entire team in one big clump and fight.

Nords do have horses now, so so long as every objective isn't an open grassy field they could still beat Khergit on such a mode. A couple Nord axemen (both throwing and the 2-handed variety) can hold off Khergs for a long time so long as they got protection from lancers and archers, so the advantage of every guy on the other side having a horse wouldn't outright determine the results of the round.

I think to make things interesting, at each line of battle (that is, at each pairing of objectives), each objective should be in an entirely different sort of terrain. So if you have an open field at one objective, the other should be a ruined tower or a cluster of hovels. With a city environment, one objective would be a plaza around a flag, while the other is a tiny courtyard accessible through alleyways lined with blind corners and roofs accessible by ladders.

Ideally I'd want something like a cross between Field with a River, and the Town map.

Assuming that we'll be spawning near the front-line at any given time, we could have bigger maps without causing things to be too sparse and boring. So let's say one side started out with Ruined castle behind them, the middle was Field with a River, and the other side started with the Town behind them. It could be a tug of war where each side has a built-up area with fortifications and height for archers and melee defenders, and a place for their forces to dig in and get organized as they spawn.

(e) Of course to take the middle an actually advance the fight, they're going to have to sally forth and fight in open ground, but there's still a river, the stone bridge, and a couple groups of hovels inbetween where infantry / archers have cover vs cavalry. I think it would require a good mixed force to win, and I think that's what folks like to see.

Have you seen how high horses can jump in this game? They can fall at least that far without getting hurt, logically, because horses and other four-legged herbivores do jump a lot in nature and they don't ever seem to die from it (unless they jump into a ravine or something).

If you're seeing the khergit jump off the walls and it's actually a ridiculous distance, those horses are definitely getting hurt. Trust me, I've been Khergit, on Castle, and I tried jumping over the wall with my horse. My horse was down to 10% health, and one throwing axe later he was down for the count. There are some areas where the ground rises up pretty high compared to the walls, and if they spaced it just right they'd only fall like 8 feet at most-- such as one of the ladder areas. I think that's probably what they teammate meant when he said he could walk off without his horse getting hurt.

Now, frankly, I don't see anything all that jarringly wrong about this. You can open the gate, sure, and ride out even faster, and if your allies are quick to close the gate up again it's unlikely enemies will get in that way.

Khergit, right now, NEED their horses to have a chance of victory. So some people have seen the entire Khergit team ride out of the castle and slaughter them out in the field in front of it. Okay, but if the siegers are able to keep it together, go up to the walls, and take the gatehouse, then the Kherg will lose that round. Sallying forth and slaying most of the enemy before they reach the walls is really their only hope.

Trying to fight close-quarters on the walls or in the gatehouse, even before getting into melee range, Khergit simply lack the static power of other faction's ranged attacks. Throwing axes, longbows, siege crossbows vs little dinkey Khergit shields, crappy helmets, and weakish armor-- it's no contest in any stand-up engagement. They absolutely need to use their horses to full effect to whittle down the enemy while using speed and evasion as their primary defense, or they have very little chance of survival.

Personally, I've seen rounds where all the Khergit sallied forth on Castle and died horribly, several rounds in a row in fact. Nord throwing axes HURT yo. We were riding up close so that we could get decent accuracy with our bows or make lance attacks, and we were just getting nailed by a storm of axes. Versus some factions, Nords face great difficulty too, but on a small map built-up map versus Khergs they are very strong!

We ended up, the only round we actually run that whole map, and on our third attempt with said strategy, just holing up in the gatehouse and blasting anyone who came with arrows. We'd also softened up the enemy a bit before then while we were holding the walls, and we did manage to do pretty well in melee combat for a change that round, so we finally got a victory. Even holing up in the tower it was hard, since at that distance the Nord axes were reasonably accurate, very deadly, and could be thrown much faster than we could string our bows. We'd pretty much all sprung for the best armor and weapons we could get since it was the last round, and won it by the skin of our teeth.

It was, all in all, a lot of frustration capped off by some good fun and some pride in an accomplishment.

I didn't like sequential capping when it went into Planetside, because it turned the whole thing into non-stop zerging where the team with the most toys won... BUT, in Warbands this could totally work.

The servers always try to keep the teams balanced in numbers, so it would really come down to who can get the most people organized.

It should probably be that there's at least a couple capture points that are a little far apart, however, in order to make things interesting. A side would need to capture BOTH to progress and make the next enemy points capturable, and if the enemy was able to recapture just one then they'd be stalemated.

I remember playing a mode similar to that in Frontlines: Fuel of War. It was actually a really effing great system for making the rounds dynamic and interesting-- only the rather unbalanced classes and powers in Frontlines stopped it from being absolutely awesome. Instead of the whole map being capturable, you would have a front line and just those points would have to be captured. Since M&B: Warbands has pretty good balance, at least none of the crippling balance issues that Frontlines had (rifle grenades anyone? Ugh), then this concept would have to be absolutely awesome in Warbands!

Another really great thing about is it that you can have a variety of different terrain and obstacles that become relevant as the frontline moves back and forth. You might have to capture a little fortified village where the defenders are up in towers shooting down at you and horses have difficulty taking part, so that shield-carrying infantry and archers take the forefront, or you might have to capture a farm with open fields and the occasional fence, perfect battlefield for cavalry to dominate. You might have a steep hill that offers little cover for defending archers but makes it hard for infantry or cavalry to reach them, or you could have a thickly clustered village or ruins where virtually all combat is close-in and there's no room for an archer or horse to maneuver. All on one map, depending on what phase you're on, you'd see entirely different abilities becoming the final key to victory.

Naturally, some parts of the map would even benefit one faction more than another. Obviously, Khergit have poor odds in melee combat or when they are dismounted. But let's say they get the front line knocked back and suddenly one of the 2 or 3 spots to take is an open field around a tower that they need to defend! Whoever's going up against them will need to organize and find a way to beat Khergit on their best ground, or they won't be able to push the battlefield back further and achieve final victory. Meanwhile, the Khergit are going to need to get organized to have enough cavalry to defend that tower, but send out enough raiders that they can defend or retake the other points on that front, and hopefully have high enough morale or organization that they can actually push the battle back the other way and win in places where they are disadvantaged--which is exactly what their opponent must do, in order to take that tower and move the frontline back.

So that a round's result doesn't become determined in the first couple minutes when people choose their class, let people change classes when they die like they can now. The idea that on the same map you're going to see different sorts of areas become relevant as the frontline moves will cause people to consider switching to classes that are most ideal in those areas, and will get them out of their comfort zone of ALWAYS playing cavalry or ALWAYS archers or ALWAYS infantry. It also allows for the kind of advanced team strategy that can actually make a difference and allow them to win on terrain where they would otherwise be disadvantaged.

I would see such a round ultimately being won by whatever team is most flexible, most skilled and organized in all respects, and that, I believe, is the gauntlet through which true skill and FUN is to be had.

I was initially hostile to the idea as well Thorbinator, but I think there might be a way to balance it.

I'm totally against the idea of standard MMO persistancy where you remain objectively powerful everywhere you go and can gank noobs like crazy.

What I'm for is a subjective system where the server 'ranks' players depending on their prestige, for each side, so that the equipment and possibly skills are actually equal. So you put your time in and get a decent ratio of team wins/losses, you're more likely to become a knight or sharpshooter or what-have-you as the strongest class in your faction.

Then again if you come onto a server where your side is outnumbered or outleveled, you're also more likely to become a knight or what-have-you because there'll be less higher-ranked players above you.

Should you be on a server where there's lots of high-ranked players on each side, yes a new person would probably be stuck as rabble (albeit with a useful, very lethal weapon-- like a pike that used well can kill an unwary charging knight, or a crossbow that can score a challenging shot and ding off a great deal of their health). But, because the degree of XP / gold / prestige gained by winning can be much higher in this 'balanced' mode, your higher-level allies should take a keen interest in keeping you alive. Intelligent high-ranked players should see the value in shepherding and improving the effectiveness of newbies on their team, because with combat being as lethally fair as it is, even peons count!

This fits with the concept that I envision of medieval warfare where knights would typically feel themselves above the act of fighting mere rabble, mere peasants (even trained soldiers). They would naturally want to bring their own rabble and trained soldiers to fight, so that they could focus on defeating their equals. Similarly, if there's a lot of knights / noblemen showing up to fight, then your own knights / noblemen would spring into action to try and gain glory in war-- perhaps take a few prizes to sell for ransom and increase their prestige even further. That is the way in which I see medieval society and its caste system, resulting in balanced battles-- at least when it comes to skirmishes over minor objectives, which most battlefields so far are.

Furthermore, a larger army would typically be slower, while a smaller army is more maneuverable. Right now on M&B Singleplayer world map, obviously an army of knights with high pathfinding has good speed and is incredibly strong. BUT, if we assume in Warband that everyone's got wagons or stable horses inbetween fights, it would figure that inferior armies would always retreat and successfully at that.

Thusly, we end up with yet another explanation for why these battles would always be evenly matched. The opposing generals always assume that they themselves are craftier than their opponents, thus, in an evenly matched battle they may very well both charge into the fray and battle to the bitter end! And so, we have an utterly thematic reason why armies of roughly equal power, and only armies of roughly equal power, would fight!

Certain battles, however, could be slanted deliberately to one side, like proper sieges where the attacker is at great disadvantage. The current Castle map really just mildly inconveniences the attacker-- no boiling oil or flaming tar pits, spears jutting through murder holes, no moats with spikes on the bottom. But, once we have really well defended castles, it would be expected for the attacker to bring far more troops. As the besiegers, they have that right! Ideas for well-defended castles without extra coding for boiling oil, murder-holes or spikes--- simply multiple battlements with fall-back positions. Make it difficult for the attackers to just charge and slaughter the defender before they can fall back, like perhaps make the ladders more obvious and slower to go up so they have a warning-- after all, the attackers are going to outnumber the defenders, defenders need every advantage they can get to make things interesting! It was expected in siege warfare, generally, that 3 attackers would be necessary per every 1 defender, or else they'd have little chance of victory through conventional tactics.

The point of all this, of course, is to simply make a scenario that's slanted massively to one side in numbers, enforced by slanted population limits, to add variety to multiplayer.

Speaking of the overall balance between higher levels and lower levels. Weapons shouldn't get much better as you go higher up in the ranks, because really, they just didn't get /that/ much better in effectiveness with medieval technology. A simple spear be it in the hands of an infantryman or light cavalry can still kill a knight, as could a bodkin arrow in the right spot or a crossbow bolt. This is how it is right now in Warbands, and I like it. A naked peasant with a standard spear, if he uses it right, can slaughter a knight with the best armor.

As I see it the main difference between the social classes in medieval, was the sophistication of their armor. Padded cloth is a given, leather was very cheap, and stiffened or reinforced leather while slightly more encumbering was also cheap, but effective. Leather covered in metal rivets or scales starts to get spendy. Hard metal armor was really quite expensive, especially things like platemail which had to be specifically fitted for the wearer and could take years to have made. Chainmail takes a great deal of work and craftship, but is worth it as you can layer it over padding and get good all-around protection without sacrificing mobility. An archer would need to be either quite wealthy or have wealthy ancestors to pass down a fine suit of chainmail, and even then, a well-aimed arrow could be lethal-- just less so than if he'd been wearing hardened leather or nothing at all. A man in platemail, would very likely be some form of noble with wealth beyond the wildest dreams of the common folk, and yet charging another knight in a joust during war, he could die in an instant.

How the balance would work team-wise, is that knights (or very well-disciplined pikemen or rabble) would naturally be needed to kill other knights, and they because they want their team to do that would be their primary vocation. Rabble is needed to fight other rabble, lest the numbers of them overwhelm highly trained but much less numerous skilled troops. Rabble would be especially vulnerable to archers, who in turn can be most readily defeated by light infantry using shields or light cavalry if the archers are in the open. Even without 'hard counters' or a strictly enforced rock-paper-scissors (which I don't want to see in M&B either), we just naturally find that it's best to focus on defeating our equals, and so we get equal battles assuming that both sides are organized and using the same tactics (which most times isn't so, which keeps things interesting!).

So, this idea of ranks and privileges could actually ENRICH the game, rather than cheapen it, which any persistant-progression system threats to do.

By playing often and playing well, you can rise in the ranks faster, but you'll always be squaring off against equals in the grand scheme of things, and only your skill will tell the difference. So what if you play often... your opponent will have roughly equivelant abilities and armor. You can be charging a knight whose only been playing a week because his team is all low leveled, while you've been fighting for months... yet the victor is decided in that moment when the lances strike..

So what it comes down to, is even if you play morning noon and night and grind the hell out of it, it still comes down to skill. You'll have time to hone that skill, but when you beat your equivelant on the other team, you'll know it's because you fought better in that engagement. Not just, you've grinded more ranks.

edit: I could see this working with the standard classes in a much simpler fashion, just by changing the reward system. The highest ranked players would either gain gold the fastest or start with better gear. Each team would have the same number of higher ranked tiers filled, players would only be compared vs their own teammates. Prestige growth can be just a flat amount given to the whole team, modified by individual player accomplishments. A character who just goes totally rambo and kills ten enemies would get 2 or 3x the experience for the fight as a player who died without getting a kill. Since that dead guy still soaked up a few shots and served as a distraction, he's still allowed to advance a little. If his team wins, he still gets a better win/loss ratio and can therefore rise in rank.

Note that the bonus for defeating a team that's smaller and less ranked than you is less, and defeating a team that's bigger or higher ranked than you is more. SO! If your team actually turns out to be better organized, luckier, more skilled in a round and wins against a 'superior' team, you can rise in rank faster, and eventually, achieve the same rank, whereby each team defeating the other would gain the same amount.

So anyway, the players who put the most time in and help their team win, will get perks. New players have something to aspire to, and they can raise faster by defeating players who have more perks than they do, thus making it a bit of a meritocracy. Everybody happy, yeah?

I don't really like the idea of mixing character progression and skill-based combat, because most players tend to fall into an average level of skill wherein one player having better stats mean they win most of the time. Actually, a player who has put more time into their character would generally have more experience and be better. Therefore, they would always win because they'd tend to be more skilled + better stats and gear.

The best way to go this route, in my opinion, is to not have personal-based experience. Make it team based, and scaled based on the relative levels of each team. If one team has many more levels than the other team, they make nil experience. To make this work, it requires we get away from the idea of limiting players to one faction, however, because if they're stuck on one faction they can't possibly balance the teams.

You'd have to force some players on the bigger / more leveled team to quit or go spectator for the round, maybe have them rotate out so they all get a chance over consecutive rounds.

That's really the only way I could see any system that locks players into playing one faction persistantly, being balanced. Some factions will be more popular than others, some factions will be much more numerous than others and the difference in numbers will only become more skewed as more people join in order to be part of the biggest, most winningest faction. You have to make matches fair by keeping the levels / population in a round somewhat even, or every round would be slanted horribly.

The playerbase, which is largely very mature and great, already has issues with keeping team balance. People tend to decide they've had enough if their faction is losing too much, or sometimes when it's winning too much, and quit, so the other team is bigger and either continues winning or starts winning (which isn't so bad in that case since it keeps things interesting!).

If you could actually gain progress by winning, team balance would be skewed /every time/ unless you have a hardcoded balancing mechanism on every Ranked server. Simply put, most people would join whatever faction or side wins the most because they want to progress the fastest. Everyone hates grind, not everyone's got the patience to take on more challenge and more grind just for the sake of being fair.

(edit): Another, more organic way of balancing it that occurs to me is have the experience / gold gained rely entirely on the power and numbers of enemies defeated. Having the XP / gold be team-based tho scaled according to level (lower levels / poorer folk will advance slightly faster, but higher level folks like knights will take a lion's share-- which to them is more a pittance), helps keep everyone interested in their team doing well, instead of everybody freelancing trying to get the best targets for themselves. That happened at the Battle of Agincourt, supposedly, and it caused a great deal of chaos and bedlam we probably don't want to spend a lazy Sunday wading through. We don't want to encourage players to be selfish, because when such game mechanics bring out the worst in people it can rather ruin things for everyone.

Under that system, the underdog would naturally have greater potential to earn points because they would have more, richer targets. HOWEVER, it's very true in massed warfare that a more numerous or equal numbered but heavier armed/armored enemy could utterly trounce their opponents without taking more than a few scratches. So, it should be that they're given pity XP / gold just for trying. Call it, their nation being desperate, digging into their reserves, and sending more expensive troops over time. The XP / gold for being a notably inferior force, even if they don't manage to kill anyone, could be equal to what their opponents receive-- yet worth more because of them being lower level.

Simply put, I don't want to see a system where newbies are forever ground into dust. Simply put, those who start out on day 1 when everyone's equal would otherwise have a far far easier time climbing the ranks than anyone who joins later, and that's a really great way to kill your community off when we're talking about a strictly competitive-style game.

(edit): Wow, another thing to occurs to me, why not have the Ranked servers such that it applies a subjective power level to your character. Basically, the 'economy' for each side would be balanced depending on how much XP/prestige/whatever they have. EACH side would, on that server, for that round, have their own share of powerful knights, heavily armed infantry / archers, standard troops like basic cavalry and pikemen, and peasant rabble. Where you fall in that scale depends on how you compare to the rest of your team.

The idea behind that is that each side wants to field an army and spends the same equivalent to hire soldiers to protect their interests.

Furthermore, the side that has less players would promote players from the top down. That is, you're going to have the same number of high-tier troops as the enemy, and the extras on the other side remain low tier. Exactly how this is calculated could/should be a server option, but with an eye toward keeping a generally 'fair' balance on all Ranked servers.

Crouching in general sounds like a pretty good idea, though someone in heavy armor crouching behind a shield would move very very slow. Perhaps have it so you can only be still while crouching, or you have to move your shield to the side to move at all (since otherwise your knees would bash into it).

It would look rather silly to see a bunch of people advancing in a crouch behind their shields. Strategic crouching could also dominate melee since it'd reduce your hitbox. It'd make sense if you turned and moved more slowly while crouched, since the legs are compressed and armor wouldn't allow for very much flexibility. In this way, surprisingly crouching could indeed get the drop on your enemies, but wouldn't be a dominating tactic because it comes with tradeoffs.

We'd also need a way for riders to aim a couched lance further down, because otherwise people could very easily crouch and avoid them as soon as they hear the hooves clopping up behind them. As it stands, it seems terrifically difficult to aim your lance low enough just to hit a standing infantryman-- unless you jump over them, weirdly enough, which isn't ideal for anyone since then you're able to avoid a 10-foot infantry lance, somehow.

Couched polearms for infantry would be a very good change. I've only seen a couple players who've mastered defeating cavalry with a polearm, and there's already a counter for infantry with polearms (archers, or just avoiding them) so it seems to me they could use a bit of a power buff. The timing is very difficult. It would be logical that you'd have trouble turning or moving without uncouching your lance, since you'd be bracing it into the ground. It should take a second or two of being in a static position to couch your lance, but it would fit the setting and tactic of the medieval era if you had at least partial shield-blocking while doing so.

Perhaps crouching can be added along with couched lances, as it makes sense you'd want to get low when you're preparing to receive a charge.

Rhodoks are quite good IMO. They need to use particular strategies that other factions don't, they're essentially invincible (except for a thin stripe along each side) if they are carrying 2 board shields, because the collision box for the board shield covers the _entire_ body when they're blocking, from their toes to their antennae. I assume they have antennae, they're some sort of overgrown stag beetle right? (edit: this 'fact' is actually highly disputed, I'm reading reports of people being hit with axes and such while blocking with Rhodok shields, so who knows. Maybe arrows just get caught by shields easier, it seems like when I see an arrow flying towards the most exposed part of somebody's body, the shield nonetheless buckles and takes the hit)

That they're restricted to crossbows is definitely a hindrance, but they're very powerful in static positions or fortified areas where they're close enough to snipe enemies without being in immediate danger from return fire. The damage isn't as great as you might expect from a crossbow, until you get a siege crossbow anyhow, but the accuracy helps. Even if the reticle isn't much smaller, that they can hold it steady without losing accuracy is a boon that helps outweigh the slow reloading time. Their crossbowmen can have those awesome board shields as well, so they have the option of switching to that and closing with enemy ranged attackers with impunity.

From my experience actually playing Rhodok, I can say I didn't feel like 2-shields was the god mode it seemed to be from the other side. I could still die easily in melee, although my shield didn't break near as easily as most, and I was quite vulnerable while using a crossbow. The glaives' awesomeness for the sergeant is also offset by this vulnerability.

Tibertus: They have to find a spot where the ground isn't that far from the wall. If they pick a bad spot, their horse can easily die or be severely wounded. A severely wounded horse will go down the first time an arrow hits it.

The main problem I see with Khergits on the Castle map is they have no infantry class, and if you want to either a) defend the castle or b) take the castle, it's going to come down to infantry. If the enemy is inside or on top of the gatehouse, they can't be reached by mounted archers.

Trouble is, once Khergits get off their horses, they lose their only advantage-- and they do in fact have disadvantages that outweigh their normal advantages from having fast horses and horse archers.

Their shields are the smallest and weakest, their melee skills appear to be severely deficient (causing slow speed and inferior damage), and their armor even the very best they can afford isn't competitive with proper 'knight' armor. Especially the helmets, which for Archers caps at 16 defense-- bad shields and bad helmet means headshots galore, and their boots aren't that great either so basically they get perforated top and bottom before they can even start melee, then in melee they're sluggish, can't take much damage, and their shields break after 1 or 2 hits literally.

What I would recommend is that the Khergit finally get a third class. Call them, I don't know, Khans or Royal Guard or something. They're troops trained and equipped for close combat, with abilities and armors roughly equivalent to other faction's melee classes.

Seriously the Khergit should have a third class like everybody else to begin with, and this would solve a major deficiency. Hell it might even stop people from whining that Khergits are overpowered, because then, not everybody on Khergit side would pick Lancer or Horse Archer. They'd have a viable infantry choice, so all the horse-hate isn't specifically referring to Khergits.

I like the differences between factions, just needs a little tweaking as it is now. Some matchups, there's no way to win.

Re: Rhodok Crossbowmen being gimped by poor armor-- Can't Rhodok Crossbowmen equip shields though? Rhodok shields are really good-- they cover a large area and can soak up a lot of damage. Armor, no matter how good, usually seems to just make the difference between dying in 1 hit or dying in 2 hits. Shields, on the other hand, completely nullify any attack that they block.

I think it would make sense, anyway, for Rhodok to have poor armor and good shields, at least if they remain in the niche they have now. They rock 'tortoise-style' (shield on back, shield in hand) like nobody else, the hitbox for actually doing damage to someone like that is smaller than you can really aim at, you just have to spray arrows and pray if you're an archer. Melee, you have to hope you can catch them when they aren't blocking. With a horse and lance, you just may have a chance.

My two cents, Rhodok's massive shields shouldn't soak up dozens and dozens of arrows and attacks when other, smaller shields CAN'T. Archery is quite strong and I can understand people wanting a big honking Rock to beat that Scissors, but I don't like the idea of a skill-based game like Mount & Blade having 'strong' counters. That is, just because you're rock and the other guy is scissors, that shouldn't mean his weapon is scissors are completely worthless. I know that's the whole point of rock paper scissors, but rock paper scissors is a pretty lame way to win an fight when you've got WEAPONS innit?

Maybe have a chance that a shot that hits the shield can still hurt the person, just a little. I think a shield carried in the hand could have 98% damage mitigation. We'd barely notice the difference, you'd have to take a fifty arrows through your shield before you finally bled out from having all these things jabbing through your forearm. Since you hold a shield away from the body, it makes sense that it mitigates a lot of the force and lethality from a diverse array of attacks.

BUT, a shield held over your back doesn't have this benefit. It should have 80% damage mitigation at most. Each time a lance or a mace, axe, or steel-shod arrow slam into that shield, you're taking the full brunt. Arrows would jab straight through and potentially hit vital organs, blunt force would pulverize them. I could see better armor helping to increase this mitigation, if you had a tower shield on your back and heavy armor under it you should be able to take ten arrows in the back and live, but we're talking about armor-piercing arrows that can kill knights, right? A chunk of wood shouldn't be guaranteed protection.

I should point out I'm not saying all shields are overpowered, I'm just saying that huge, square shields are, especially when you've got one both front and back. You become a tank that doesn't even move slower or is encumbered in any way, and yet, the generous hitboxes of shields mean even your legs, head, and arms are impossible to hit.

It would make sense if the larger your shield is, the easier it is to break. If your first shield breaks, well I guess that's why you carry a second one, huh? Heck, the Romans used to nullify massive shields like that with one Pilum, you can't very well defend yourself when you've got a gnarled throwing spear stuck through your shield and tripping you up.

Really though, I just think it's unfortunate that no other faction gets so much benefit from shields. Archery is pretty strong, and factions with round, flimsy shields don't always have a counter. Nords are really screwed in this respect, they're worse than Rhodok in every way and have tiny shields. Their archers can fire fast but shortbows don't hurt much and are much less accurate than crossbows-- and they have no shields whatsoever to defend themselves from return fire, while they can't hurt a guy hiding behind a board shield unless he does something very dumb. They have 'scouts' as very basic cavalry that can't stand up to Rhodok's heavy cavalry. Their two-handed axes take dozens of hits in order to destroy the Rhodok's great shields. Melee, archers, cavalry, outclassed in every way.

Nord vs Rhodok is one matchup that always goes the same way. I was playing on the Battle server last niht, we'd had pretty much the same players every round and each fight could go either way, it was a lot of fun. But then we got Nord vs Rhodok. We couldn't do anything, we were outmatched in every way and handily so. The only way we could make it the least bit in doubt was going all cavalry, but, Rhodoks also got great spearmen, and if they go all cavalry, well, their cavalry is BETTER so ... Anyway, on that server it went from hundreds of rounds where victory changed hands virtually every round, to, an eight to zero shutout.

(edit) I should note though, I feel the balance is mostly okay. By that I mean there's really no strategies that are unbeatable or totally ideal. 'Tortoise-style' with massive, very hard to break shields is the only thing I can think of where a logically meh strategy is actually a strategy you'd be a fool not to use. It's still not entirely gamebreaking though, there's still a balancing factor. For instance, you can't really do ranged AND two shields, because you need 2 slots for weapon and ammo + 2 slots for shields. If you go with throwing weapons, you've only got 14 shots and very inaccurate, short-ranged ones at that. Being melee with 2 shields is quite strong, it screws over archers entirely, but cavalry could just ride away. Having 2 really big shields definitely makes you harder to hurt than anyone else on the battlefield, it really makes you a tank, but at least you lose out on some flexibility by going that route.

I think it needs tweaking, but it's not the end of the world.

Shield size and durability varies greatly between the factions now, a little too greatly. The Rhodok shields are massive and can take a great deal of abuse, while the Khergit shields are broken by a single axe blow.

It's a bit backwards to have large shields be more durable than small shields. If the shield is small, it can be thicker, stronger material without being too heavy to use. Furthermore, the larger a shield is the more protected you are, and if that shield is nigh-on invincible on top of that, well, you're invincible too. I'm all for factions being different and having different strengths, but since archery is so powerful a faction that can effectively nullify archery will dominate.

Right now, the best tactic for melee is the tortoise style, two shields. A lot of factions aren't that good at this because they only have little dinky round shields, some have kite shields that are about average in that regard, and then some have massive board shields and are almost invincible from any angle with a shield on their back and a shield on their front.

So long as you don't have a round shield, you can do pretty good against archery. If you're starting a charge halfway across the map, on foot, and you're not zig-zagging well enough that you're actually getting hit when you're farther away than spitting distance, then you just aren't doing it right or the enemy is very lucky, as arrows just aren't that fast.

If you're just charging straight at an archer and they're unloading ten, twenty arrows at you... you ought to be dead anyway. You're holding that shield with your arm and those arrow heads will punch right through, probably staple the shield right against your chest. A shield isn't perfect protection, it just so happens the way they choose to simulate that is by letting the shield break when it's taken a lot of abuse.

I haven't really had an issue with horses jumping over me while the rider killed me, I don't think it's actually happened to me and I just played for about six hours straight. The timing to get a regular couched lance attack is rather tricky, adding that on top of it seems like too much work.

I did have a horse rider try to jump me once, and I killed him because I aimed a little higher up. Seems like the horse still makes a rather large target when they're jumping you, and if you can take out the horse the rider is much less dangerous than before.

One thing I have noticed, in my experience it's very difficult to fight horsemen with a spear, you're better off with a swinging weapon, ideally a two-handed axe or something big like that. Though I did run into one player (Jethro-something) who was quite good at spearing cavalry. I tried to charge him on many separate occasions, each time I got close he'd waste my horse or just straight kill me. So apparently this is something one can master.

Yes that would be a very cool mode also. Heck, VIP mode like that would be neat just by itself. It's true you have to worry about a noob / idiot getting control of the VIP and losing the round due to foolishness, but that's always been a problem with VIP-type games and that hasn't stopped them from being popular and fun modes in games that have them.

But combining the ideas of player-controlled squads and having VIPs they need to defend, that sounds like wicked fun.

Well I'm glad to here there'll be a 'warbands' kind of mode, or at least they're planning it.

As for performance, personally I get massive lag for battles that involve about 300 troops, as in 1 FPS with starts and stops. But, 100 would be fine. I think if someone couldn't run a battle with 100 units on screen they just shouldn't join a server that has that option.

Chances are with multiple players commanding units, there wouldn't be all that many troops in one area and that would reduce the rendering difficulty as well.

Personally I don't think we'd need large numbers to make Warband useful though, you could just have a smaller number of players on the server, make it kind of a 'tactics' game where most of the fighters are player-commanded AI. Same 64 players, but only 8 of them played by humans, something like that. Or a full number of spots for players, plus additional AI, never more than maybe 80 total pr whatever the performance max is, but they'd fill in for any missing humans so you'd have big battles day and night.

I bet quite a few people would just like to pay 1 vs 1 with huge armies of NPCs, and I'd suspect there'll be mods that let us change any population cap that's in, so two people with fast computers could hopefully run quite a large battle. I know nothing about how demanding the AI is bandwidth-wise though, whether they're easier for the server to handle or harder.

I mostly play archers and I'm okay with the mirror damage. It only hurts me about twenty rounds or so. I actually fire into melee that involves friendlies, but only when I can predict where the friendly is going to be. Sometimes you can predict, sometimes you can't. If you can't, don't shoot.

Most times when I take a risky shot into melee like that, I miss both combatants. If I hit a friendly and get hurt, well, I shouldn't have taken the shot clearly. If the mirror damage was reduced a bit I wouldn't mind, but I don't mind it the way it is, either.

If a friendly jumps in front of you, just right mouse button to cancel the shot before you let go. There's no way someone could intentionally jump in front of your shots with any regularity that's worth worrying about. You can always fake them out, and if they're really such a bother that they're jumping all over the place making it hard to aim at anything, your teammates will probably kick them.

The only time mirror damage irritates me is when I accidently hit someone's horse, don't even kill the horse, but the damage to my character is either massive or lethal. Horses are quite big targets. It doesn't happen that often though.

You just have to be careful with the mirror damage friendly fire system as it is, same as in singleplayer mount & blade. You wouldn't fire into your own troops, would you? Troops are expensive and take time to train. You shouldn't throw away the lives of your teammates either. And getting rid of the ranged friendly fire would make archery rather cheap.

Ordonator 说:

There shouldn't be one Troop-archetype to rule them all. It's stupid and it makes people want to quit the game. And I'm not alone on this one.

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I think there is a certain balance with sword + shield vs bow vs horseback, but it seems to me at present that spears are mostly useless.

I should point out though, I haven't put them to very much use yet in Warbands. I could be wrong, I just have no reason to doubt your assessment. It jives with how regular M&B works, and it certainly doesn't seem to be any easier.

I'm going to get back into playing the game and not worry about it too much. If I get a chance to try taking out horsemen with a spear I'll give it a shot and see what the odds are for myself.