Cav shields

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Percival!!

Percival!!

Knight
Old Guard
Hello, here is some footage representing a cav shield blocking projectiles while in dismount animation, during attack animation, and even projectiles behind back. Not to mention their horse deciding to stick its head up to block shots for them.
RigidPlushAmericankestrel-size_restricted.gif


In reality, here is an actual clip of cav shield coverage being completely broken.
What
Idk why when cav gets dismounted they get thrown away, teleported into walls, and can put up their shield almost instantly. On the other hand someone bumped can be hit twice by the same person before getting up. Not a very balanced class, especially considering heavy cav health/horse health is already broken for the damage output it produces and little risk of hits (even from projectiles thanks to massive passive invisible shield coverage by shields during attack animation.)

Oh yeah, also anyone can still mount a horse even if they are a crossbowman they can mount AND use pavise shield from horseback.
Nerf cav, ty.
 
I was watching that happen live and had the exact same reaction you did lol.

People have been complaining about dismounted cav being able to stand up instantly since DAY 1 of alpha testing yet here we are in a tournament with it happening, a year after we first brought attention to how unbalanced it is.
 
Actually in medieval times, the young cav players also know as mammarilukes trained for days in the arts of parkour and thus when being dismounted and falling from a 6ft horse at 30 miles an hour carrying weapons and wearing heavy armor, they were able to ignore the pain and broken vertebrae to perform a shock-dampening roll while strategically pulling out their shield which they used as a sled to slide away from the enemy with their initial dismounting momentum. They drilled this for years until they could perform it under a second!
 
The Sturgian heavy cav is particularly bad for this. With a couched lance, they get perfect coverage of their entire body, if they take the large shield
 
As a cav play, can confirm, it feels like 12 years to stand up after getting knocked. But when you fight someone else, it feels instant. Has to do with lag im sure. I think the bigger thing to look at is how weird it is to even hit someone on the ground because half the time they clip into a wall or the ground itself. Also, judging by how the animation of the guy turning snapped to the side as soon as you shot, its very likely he was actually already in that position when you hit him, you just didnt see it, cuz animation / server lag. Overall, some wonky stuff going on here in the clip.

I've been knocked off my horse plenty of times and shot in the ass. It's not that hard to do. Unless they clip into the ground or something.

That all being said. Cav are completely broken and way too overpowering of a unit. Been saying it since day 1. It's even in my 30hr game review. Cav are OP af. Way too much hp for the horse. Takes 7 infantry slapping a horse to get it CLOSE to dying. Pretty much ONLY Throwing weapons and arrows or other cav are gonna knock a horse.

As for shields, i've been shot/javed in the foot while holding my shield up at an enemy so many times its infuriating. Especially when those javs/arrows doing 140 damage to my toe. So i'd say the whole shield protection being perfect doesn't quite feel right to say.
 
Shields are bad for inf against projectiles, mostly half the recruit shields have almost no projectile coverage (meanwhile some class which gets 6 jareeds costs 100 and gets one of the largest shields in the game right now), but they are overpowered for cav as even when attacking shots that should hit will land on a shield because the shield's invisible coverage isn't affected by attacking. Not to mention a cav can drop a couch at the last second after holding his shield up coming at you and literally have 0 risk to couching or just approach at an angle where his horse's head completely protects him from arrow shots by the time he actually drops his shield to attack.

Anyway, it is a massive problem that a cav takes no punishment when getting dismounted given the massive health of heavy horses against anything but crossbows, throwing weapons, or other cav. An archer doesn't have time to shoot him before he gets up (in the clip above I reloaded as soon as I dismounted him and still didn't have time to shoot, an inf who dismounts him has an even harder time as he would have to chase him all the way to where he fell which takes forever and pretty much eliminates the chance of infantry being able to capitalize on dismounting a cav.

I honestly wouldn't mind cav getting up fast if y'know, when a cav player runs into a wall, their horse gets stopped and if they are near a bunch of inf their horse dies, but both riders and horses are barely vulnerable at all to infantry trying to hit them.
 
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I'd be a supporter of anytime a cav slaps a wall at the speed that causes their horses head to comically thrash backwards, that cav actually takes significant damage. Also if horse jumps off a damn roof, it should take more damage. Been seeing flying cav on that map with A up on top the tunnel. Pretty sure that calls for some broken horse legs, or maybe even a dismount.

Would actually be pretty interesting to see an inf get dismounted when a cav is stopped suddenly from full speed, whether by wall, fall, or spear, and not just when the horse dies. I think it was RDR2 that had something like that? Horse hits a small fence and sends you flying because you didn't jump? Could make for cav needing to actually think before charging, and focus more on speed changes, and give another avenue for infantry to deal with a horse. Would also make infantry a real big threat to a cav, since spears do actually stop cav sometimes. They'd not KILL the horse, but they'd dismount and then kill the rider on a good stop. Hmm.. Just thinking out loud in text here.

I think the health pools of horses are being adjusted in the next patch. Seem to remember that being stated on another thread.
 
Virthuss said:
Cav is totally OP for now. Tanky horses, almost no penalty when falling from horses when horses dies, couch lance not breaking when touching an ennemy as it does in real life.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Couches are, as a concept, fine. The issue is that they're extremely easy to perform, and it's generally low risk, high reward. Here are some of its elements which lead to it being problematic.

  1. Bump Couches, see this:
  2. Couches can be held indefinitely (makes timing almost a non-issue. Also, it lets you get free kills by just running around and hoping someone runs into your couch – not a fair mechanic)
  3. You can round corners with a couch easily and COUCH UP AND DOWN STAIRS. This just doesn't make sense
  4. Couches can be initiated basically 1 second before impact and instakill (while this technically rewards good timing, it is the same as the kick-pila technically rewarding good footwork). If the devs want a video of this I can make one easily.
  5. The speed at which one can initiate a couch is ridiculously low.
  6. Horses are pretty hard to hear.
  7. Horse hitboxes are broken.

By contrast, Warband couching was difficult enough to do, and it was high risk high reward. It wasn't an omnipresent feature as it is in Bannerlord.
 
The main issue with Spear Vs Horse now is that most infantry units can’t bring a spear without sacrificing something else extremely important. (A shield)

Pikes are a whole different animal though. The length actually limits their effectiveness because once the cav gets inside your length there is nothing you can do that doesn’t lead to a glance.
 
Yukmouth++ said:
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.
Click to expand...


"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." :

Well breaking a horse leg or a direct one handed hit on a horse head would do the trick.
In most of situations the point was not to kill the horse but to hurt him to dismount the rider. Or to dismount the rider directly. Enough damages to the horse should lead to the rider being dismounted.

It's not normal that after a dozen of one handed hit, the horse is still ok and reacting to its rider's order without bating an eye.
 
Horses were tanky, but they weren't stupid. No matter what their riders told them, they wouldn't charge into spears or massed infantry. And there are plenty of example of knights dismounting off their horses if the battle field wasn't cav friendly. A trained warhorse was crazy expensive, but in Bannerlord it costs a little more than a good bow.

I can stop a charging cav with a pike if I see it in time and time my stab just right. Of course, after that I can't do much. If I switch weapons I might get one glancing blow before he's gone. A swung two handed axe to the head of a charging horse can do a fair amount of damage, but doesn't even slow it down. Hell, I can't even kill a riderless horse most of the time.

It would be interesting if good hits caused the rider to lose control of their horse for awhile, or if wounding slowed the horse down and made it less maneuverable like in SP. +50% health would be regular horse, +25% would be swaybacked, and under 25% would be wounded.
 
Lord Bryggan said:
Horses were tanky, but they weren't stupid. No matter what their riders told them, they wouldn't charge into spears or massed infantry. And there are plenty of example of knights dismounting off their horses if the battle field wasn't cav friendly. A trained warhorse was crazy expensive, but in Bannerlord it costs a little more than a good bow.

I can stop a charging cav with a pike if I see it in time and time my stab just right. Of course, after that I can't do much. If I switch weapons I might get one glancing blow before he's gone. A swung two handed axe to the head of a charging horse can do a fair amount of damage, but doesn't even slow it down. Hell, I can't even kill a riderless horse most of the time.

It would be interesting if good hits caused the rider to lose control of their horse for awhile, or if wounding slowed the horse down and made it less maneuverable like in SP. +50% health would be regular horse, +25% would be swaybacked, and under 25% would be wounded.
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Depends on the era. Horses are herd animals and will follow the alpha wherever he goes. In the later medieval era the horses were heavily armored and used blinders for head on charges into pikes, and sometimes even destroyed formations of pikemen in head on charges. Since the pikes or spears are going to break or shatter from the impact of the charging 1400lb armored horses it becomes a simple matter of throwing enough counter weight into the cavalry charge to bog it down and prevent a breakthrough which is why infantry continued to fight in very deep formations.
 
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Horses are so easy to kill. Especially the low-end like Coursers, Raiders and Vanguards. Wind can take them out without a single enemy hit.
 
Yukmouth++ said:
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.
Click to expand...

This is very accurate and a major part of the whole "cav too stronk" problem. While things like javelins can literally delete a horse with one throw, or anything ranged, really, sword etc swings do basically no damage to it, which is pretty backwards.

Couches as a concept are eh, questionable, but the way they were done in Warband was good. Adding to what Canton mentioned some posts above, a couch in BL, unless you shaft-couch someone while dragging your lance, is an instakill no matter what you hit, it's ridiculous, an armored infantry should have at least some chance to survive a couch if hit at a relatively low speed.

I main cav and couch kills are so low effort it actually feels unfair. Especially when put into context of heavy infs having to whack each other about 6 times on average to kill their opponent.
 
Grytviken said:
Depends on the era. Horses are herd animals and will follow the alpha wherever he goes. In the later medieval era the horses were heavily armored and used blinders for head on charges into pikes, and sometimes even destroyed formations of pikemen in head on charges. Since the pikes or spears are going to break or shatter from the impact of the charging 1400lb armored horses it becomes a simple matter of throwing enough counter weight into the cavalry charge to bog it down and prevent a breakthrough which is why infantry continued to fight in very deep formations.
Click to expand...
I was referring to the BannerLord era, before blinders and such things. What you describe is all part of the arms race. Cav was designed to break up infantry units, which worked against untrained 'fyrds' and such, who broke and ran, so they got pikes, so the horses and their riders got better armour, better training and yeah, blinders.

But when I play Bannerlord, I have no fear of death, so cavalry charges don't make me panic. And apparently the horses don't fear death either since they will charge through groups of infantry... but unlike me, they survive 90% of the time.
 
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