They would need a spear by default for when they break their lance, otherwise would be kinda dumb that they are limited to 1 kill then they hit people with their fists from the top of their horses lol.
I personally hate the whole idea of bringing couche lances into MP. It is completely ANTI-PVP, ANTI-SKILL, and the worst of all, unblockable. Why would we be abble to block a thrust, but not a static lance directed towards us ? It is ridiculous that it cant be blocked. One shotting people from the rear is already a massive bonus in its own right, making it unblockable face to face makes it way overkill.
About the horses, i do not know what are TW's plans for certainty, but it seems they are aiming for a nerf to horses general tankiness as well as a buff to spears against horses, which is okay i guess, but not what i'd personally prefer.
I do not think spears vs horses is the real issue here, 95% of my 1v1 encounters as spear inf vs cav will lead to me winning my trade on the cav, and most cav players know best not to try their luck vs a foot inf with spear in hand, they cant win. The real issue for me, is the effectiveness of all other weapons but spears against horses (1h swords, axes, maces, etc.) When an ennemy cav gets blocked into the middle of a bunch of infs, the only damage that the horse receives, basicly, is the initial spear damage, all the other attempts to damage the horse with standard weapons just all fall so flat, no matter how i position myself, it always does a glancing blow, and this is where the frustration occurs for me. Nothing should forgive a horse getting stopped and surrounded by a bunch of armed warriors spamming it with blows. Most of these blows deal less than 10 damage.
I know from a realistic point of view (which i hate), a horse is tanky, add an armor on that horse and hes tanky as hell, i GET it. But this is PVP online in a multiplayer game, where players compete to show whos the best, and in such competition, realism must be disregarded for the sake of good gameplay mechanics. There should be NO glancing blows possible on a horse from any weapon whatsoever. Does this make sense ? Not at all. Does it balance horses ? It does. What it would do is punish cavs that were too careless to try their luck face to face vs spear wielders. The spearman stops the horses, his teamates butcher the horse under the cav with 1h weapons. Does this mean any inf beats a cav 1v1 ? Not at all, you cant outreach the cav with your 1h weapon, and most of the time you lose your trade with a non-spear 2h weapon. This would nerf the fact that cavs can just walk into the middle of a battle and bump people with 0 repercussion. Horses walking in the middle of a teamfight should suffer greatly from all these melee blows.