Every Problem People Have With Combat Can Be Attributed To Movement And Protection

[EbdanianAdmiral]

This is going to ramble, because I just came out of yet another Bannerlord session that I did not enjoy at all. Rather than just quitting the MP forever like much of the original playerbase, I am going to try to outline exactly what made the experience frustrating from a players perspective. I am not going to talk about maps or the class system at all, because those things can be ignored during an early access period. Players understand that the game is a work in progress and player retention is highly dependent on core gameplay rather than other details for the time being.

The most important aspect of any PvP experience is how much control the individual players have over an interaction. The control a player has over an interaction is essentially a measurement of that players ability to stay alive. When players feel that they do not have control, they feel like they lost despite doing everything correctly. This is something that should be avoided at all costs because it is by far the easiest way to make players upset. When players are upset, they often simply elect to not do what is upsetting them. I am not going to bring Warband up a lot, because Bannerlord is its own game, but Warband was the master of making sure the players were in control. I'll elaborate below on how I feel players do not have control in Bannerlord and how these things can potentially be fixed.


Control Over Movement:
Speed
If I said "The infantry in Bannerlord moves too slow," there would be people in the thread below telling me Im absolutely wrong. I know this because I have said "The infantry in Bannerlord moves too slow," and people have told me "You are absolutely wrong." If I said "The infantry in Bannerlord moves too fast," once again, people would tell me Im absolutely wrong. I know this because well you get the idea. The thing is, both of these people are completely correct. Foot movement is not too slow, its not too fast, its too weird. When an archer is kiting from an infantry, spins around because he was somehow outrunning the infantry with his bow drawn and pops the infantry despite the infantry being within swinging distance, thats weird. When an infantry gets kicked and javelined in the face by a skirmisher running forward despite backing up with a shield, thats weird. In both of these situations, the dead player isnt thinking "wow, I got outplayed. Maybe if my movement was better that could have gone differently," no no, hes actually thinking "WTF just happened? That made no sense." Because of the way movement is currently tuned, infantry are often put in lose-lose situations that do nothing but frustrate them.

How do you go about fixing this? Id love to see infantry speed increased while their shields are raised. Im also a firm believer in sharper movement being better movement. Giving increased acceleration in all directions would go a long way in giving infantry players more control over their movement. When I first started playing in alpha the movement was the exact opposite of sharp and players would basically float around the screen like they were walking with a kid on their shoulders. This has incrementally gotten better as time has gone by, but I guarantee that a patch bringing large changes to infantry acceleration and change of direction speed would be very well liked by everyone who still plays Multiplayer.

Stuns
The stun mechanics in this game are extremely frustrating for anybody who is playing a non cav class. I am completely fine with infantry being on the ground for awhile after a cav bumps into them. If you want cavalry to be impactful when they crash an engagement that is your choice as developers and Im behind that decision. What I (and everyone else who wants to take this game seriously) am completely NOT okay with is how the game treats cav who get dismounted. Under no circumstances should a man who gets violently knocked off his horse be able to raise his shield and defend himself in .75 seconds. Not only does this completely destroy any attempts at realism that the game maintains, it is also absolutely abysmal for balance. I am BEGGING you, developers, to consider reworking this. The infantry players deserve to be able to bonk the cavalry they worked so hard to dismount before they stand up and become discount infantry. Im saying this as someone who plays predominantly cav as well. On the subject of cav, I would really like to see cavalry rear up when they smash into a wall at 50kph.

Control Over Protection:

Blocking
Following the back and forth between players and devs regarding block delay has been...interesting. To the devs credit, they have made great strides in increasing the players ability to block. I think at some point they realized that making the best and most unique thing about your game basically RNG was probably a bad idea. With that said, until players have complete input control over their blocking there will be people still complaining. At this point why not just go all in? Crank those parameters all the way up to 11 and see how absurdly precise and responsive the blocking can get. There is nothing to lose in doing so.

Shields
Im going to be very straight and to the point. Shields not functioning properly as shields is the #1 turnoff in terms of combat for myself and a lot of other players. Hancock had a pretty good post about it earlier and I dont want to steal his thunder, but archers and crossbows have free reign over the entire meta at the moment because infantry and cav are hapless to do anything about projectiles. The shields provided to the classes simply do not work the way they are intended. Infantry cannot approach an archer from the front without being footshot or headshot or shouldershot in some form or another. What makes matters worse is even if they do approach them and get up in the archers face, the archer can just turn around and run away. The infantry is forced to chase with his shield down in order to catch the kiting player, but the big problem in the interaction is that the archer can turn around and shoot faster than the infantry can re-raise his shield. This is an absolutely enormous problem in the infantry-archer meta and the kiting spam that has become prevalent is ruining the game for a lot of people. Shields absolutely, 100%, need to cover more and be raised faster.


I dearly hope that people take the time to read and discuss this. I have been defending Taleworlds and Bannerlord since alpha. Watching the community Ive been a part of for 6 years die because they cant deal with the issues above has been very painful. Unfortunately the bottom line is that without player control being addressed quickly and concisely, the numbers will continue to drop to the point of no return. I dont think anyone wants to see that but its just what we are going to have to deal with without some action being taken. Thank you for reading.

 

[Fietta]

I feel in general, the game should be slower paced - reducing the overall movement speed for all troops. At the moment, if you're playing anything other than a heavy infantry unit, you're sprinting around the place, it's why duels are so tedious, because you accelerate extremely fast, so it's impossible to keep track of the troop in front of you, you're constantly jolting your mouse in attempt to catch up; the only reason it may seem slower paced is because you're spending most of your time hitting their shield or hitting them 5 times before they die, but the overall movement is really quick for most troops. Not only that but the collision is god-awful, you could be behind someone but when they do a right or left swing the tip of the blade can hit you, it's tragic really. Instead of increasing speed, more like do a global decrease in movement speed, similar to that of Warband.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

. At the moment, if you're playing anything other than a heavy infantry unit, you're sprinting around the place

This is sort of the problem. Every class has good footwork except the class infantry players (the people whos entire class revolves around good footwork) Are shoehorned into playing. If a viable medium infantry existed this would not be a problem.

 

[Fietta]

I mean, I wish all infantry troops had only minor differences to speed, almost negligible, instead, heavy infantry are walking and light infantry are running. They should both have a middle ground with MINOR speed adjustments. In Warband weight did matter to movement, but it was awfully minimal, as standard, infantry should be slow-medium speed where you're able to do some slow-paced fighting like in Warband, where the movement means they're not 10 metres away from you, more like two so you can team play backstabbing. Currently, infantry fights are all over the shop and each player is at at least 10 metres away from you, you always find yourself running to another player, whilst in Warband you're pretty much just turning around hitting them in the back, which is really good for team play - infantry fights in BL are just 1v1s.

Duelling in BL is similar, when you back off, you end up backing off by like 5 metres, whilst in Warband it wouldn't be anymore than 2, that's because the acceleration means you're just sprinting backwards, a global slowdown is NEEDED.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

Like I said. The movement is weird. I think you are misunderstanding me when I suggested an increase to acceleration. Acceleration does nothing to change top speed. All it does is make it so the infantry can do things like switch and dodge more easily. Whenever I go from moving left to moving right in Bannerlord I feel like I weigh 340 LBS. Different players having completely different takes on how the movement feels is a testament to how inconsistent and wonky it is. I do feel that making infantry slower would further increase Archer hell

 

[Fietta]

Like I said. The movement is weird. I think you are misunderstanding me when I suggested an increase to acceleration. Acceleration does nothing to change top speed. All it does is make it so the infantry can do things like switch and dodge more easily. Whenever I go from moving left to moving right in Bannerlord I feel like I weigh 340 LBS. Different players having completely different takes on how the movement feels is a testament to how inconsistent and wonky it is. I do feel that making infantry slower would further increase Archer hell

Yeah the acceleration of heavier troops seems reasonable, not the 100g troops though (they're lightening fast). When I mean global slowdown I mean all troops including archers, but yeah there would be an ongoing issue with catching up to archers though or going past them, they'll just rain down on you, dunno how we'd combat that. Smaller maps?

Problem is with the reactive blocking, having fast acceleration (or even medium acceleration) means they'll just turn around you quickly (already an issue in Duel) and you can't keep up as they pretty much go from in front of you to the right of you faster than you can react, not only that, with the collision-based blocked, as soon as they move around you they'll just clip your shoulder or something. Problem is, is that the values are all over the place, instead of just being a constant movement speed; bun off acceleration and just have the movement and speed similar to Warband, then everyone's happy. Currently movement speed is troop based, are drastically different to each other, the acceleration curve is exponential instead of linear, it's just a mess really.

The issue with acceleration is that the top speed is already phenomenal for some troops and the curve to the top speed is exponential instead of linear, which also explains the 'floaty' movement, as you end up fighting against the acceleration which also causes sliding. The problem with it being more to do with acceleration is that usually with acceleration, you'll also need to decelerate, so you're practically sliding to a stop - whilst if the acceleration was constant and movement speed was constant, you stop when you want to stop instead of fighting against acceleration.

The graph below doesn't take into account a lot, but just the general idea and let's pretend top speed is '15', y is top speed, x is acceleration (time in ms). The graph isn't directed at anyone, just to my point.



As you can see, you're pretty much hitting top speed by tapping A or D (red line, how it is currently) exponentially whilst it should be more linear.
A way to put it is when it's exponential (like it feels like now) you're acting more like a slingshot, whilst linear it's gradual, so you're constantly attempting to jolt your camera in attempt to block the acceleration of the opponent, it's pretty annoying.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

I agree on movement, in some cases it's too slow (usually while shielding or holding an attack) and in others it's too fast. The issue is movement relative to others in combat, which feels unpredictable and inconsistent, and this isn't due to sick movement from the opponent, just happens with everyone.

I think acceleration is definitely the thing to look at, specifically at acceleration from combat speed. I also think having movement speed as a separate modifier for troops is a mistake - I'd love to see this a lot more equalised, and have instead minor combat speed and acceleration benefits for melee orientated troops. This gives them an edge over footwork, but not the often absurd hit and run by 2 handed berzerkers we've seen in various patches which isn't fun for anyone.

 

[rektasaurus]

Yeah movement is really weird. I think it feels like movement speed needs to be slowed down because of how op strafing while slashing is. Sidestepping and then reversing direction to match the direction of the slash gets around the defender’s block and gets a momentum buff to damage. I think that’s why players are incentivized to run around like a chicken with their head cut off while swinging madly which doesn’t feel like real sword play. Also it’s frustrating because the block doesn’t cover the entire direction of attack, only the direction of the attack if the attacker is sitting almost directly opposite the blocker. Also holding block direction down with a shield should not open the defender to an attack from above. It’s too much mouse input with enemies running around and trying to track them to keep facing them to feel like there’s a good flow to dueling and running around should be able to be punished with a precise attack.

I don’t like using movement keys to control block/attack direction and it also seems like there’s an issue with using the mouse. Like it’s too sensitive in the beginning of loading the direction. Mouse movement also feels like acceleration is applied to it which is a super big no no and feels super clunky while foot movement is too snappy. It should be the opposite. I wish movement matched what Arma does in their game, they got it perfect. A stamina pool (don’t display a bar like an mmo) would be great to balance short bursts of movement

Archer vs infantry should be balanced a bit yeah. Ai infantry who have shields just sit and take arrows it’s so frustrating


Also something should be done about the javelins sticking out of the body. No way someone with a javelin in their shoulder can continue fighting, just have it drop off for crying out loud...

 

[Hans 77]

Control Over Movement

Personally, I would like to see Taleworlds fix ^ this ^ before tackling any swing/block delay and the disgracefully bad shielding mechanics.

I think people underestimate how paramount having a proper movement/acceleration/speed balance is to making combat feel "right".

Warband found the magic formula, and character movement played an integral part in creating the rhythm and feeling which made people fall in love with its melee combat system.

Without balanced, functional, and aesthetic footwork, it doesn't matter if there's a block or swing delay; the combat will feel weird no matter what -because it lacks the necessary foundations to hold itself up (no pun intended). Again, that thing being namely: Movement.

The flawed movement mechanics directly create/contribute to some of the more frustrating issues like endless archer kiting and the inescapable kick-throw/shot/slash from an enemy moving forward, along with range, distance, and timing inconsistencies in general melee combat.

Anyway, good post, and in a forum dominated by Block Delay and Archery/Cav OP threads, thank you for highlighting something which has largely flown under the radar; the real "silent killer" of Bannerlord's gameplay: the movement.

 

[rektasaurus]

Personally, I would like to see Taleworlds fix ^ this ^ before tackling any swing/block delay and the disgracefully bad shielding mechanics.

I think people underestimate how paramount having a proper movement/acceleration/speed balance is to making combat feel "right".

Warband found the magic formula, and character movement played an integral part in creating the rhythm and feeling which made people fall in love with its melee combat system.

Without balanced, functional, and aesthetic footwork, it doesn't matter if there's a block or swing delay; the combat will feel weird no matter what -because it lacks the necessary foundations to hold itself up (no pun intended). Again, that thing being namely: Movement.

The flawed movement mechanics directly create/contribute to some of the more frustrating issues like endless archer kiting and the inescapable kick-throw/shot/slash from an enemy moving forward, along with range, distance, and timing inconsistencies in general melee combat.

Anyway, good post, and in a forum dominated by Block Delay and Archery/Cav OP threads, thank you for highlighting something which has largely flown under the radar; the real "silent killer" of Bannerlord's gameplay: the movement.

Agreed. And yeah I’ve got a bone to pick about the camera too. First person is weird and in third person my head blocks the point where I’m aiming and my troops’ unit counters fill up my fov if they are set to follow so I can’t see anything. It’s already a challenge to judge distance, the most important factor of sword fighting, on a 2d screen, why make it harder with the camera?

 

[HancockT35]

+1

 

[Alyss]

omg, this isn't constructive criticism because it's not positive criticism!

 

[rektasaurus]

This is going to ramble, because I just came out of yet another Bannerlord session that I did not enjoy at all. Rather than just quitting the MP forever like much of the original playerbase, I am going to try to outline exactly what made the experience frustrating from a players perspective. I am not going to talk about maps or the class system at all, because those things can be ignored during an early access period. Players understand that the game is a work in progress and player retention is highly dependent on core gameplay rather than other details for the time being.

The most important aspect of any PvP experience is how much control the individual players have over an interaction. The control a player has over an interaction is essentially a measurement of that players ability to stay alive. When players feel that they do not have control, they feel like they lost despite doing everything correctly. This is something that should be avoided at all costs because it is by far the easiest way to make players upset. When players are upset, they often simply elect to not do what is upsetting them. I am not going to bring Warband up a lot, because Bannerlord is its own game, but Warband was the master of making sure the players were in control. I'll elaborate below on how I feel players do not have control in Bannerlord and how these things can potentially be fixed.


Control Over Movement:
Speed
If I said "The infantry in Bannerlord moves too slow," there would be people in the thread below telling me Im absolutely wrong. I know this because I have said "The infantry in Bannerlord moves too slow," and people have told me "You are absolutely wrong." If I said "The infantry in Bannerlord moves too fast," once again, people would tell me Im absolutely wrong. I know this because well you get the idea. The thing is, both of these people are completely correct. Foot movement is not too slow, its not too fast, its too weird. When an archer is kiting from an infantry, spins around because he was somehow outrunning the infantry with his bow drawn and pops the infantry despite the infantry being within swinging distance, thats weird. When an infantry gets kicked and javelined in the face by a skirmisher running forward despite backing up with a shield, thats weird. In both of these situations, the dead player isnt thinking "wow, I got outplayed. Maybe if my movement was better that could have gone differently," no no, hes actually thinking "WTF just happened? That made no sense." Because of the way movement is currently tuned, infantry are often put in lose-lose situations that do nothing but frustrate them.

How do you go about fixing this? Id love to see infantry speed increased while their shields are raised. Im also a firm believer in sharper movement being better movement. Giving increased acceleration in all directions would go a long way in giving infantry players more control over their movement. When I first started playing in alpha the movement was the exact opposite of sharp and players would basically float around the screen like they were walking with a kid on their shoulders. This has incrementally gotten better as time has gone by, but I guarantee that a patch bringing large changes to infantry acceleration and change of direction speed would be very well liked by everyone who still plays Multiplayer.

Stuns
The stun mechanics in this game are extremely frustrating for anybody who is playing a non cav class. I am completely fine with infantry being on the ground for awhile after a cav bumps into them. If you want cavalry to be impactful when they crash an engagement that is your choice as developers and Im behind that decision. What I (and everyone else who wants to take this game seriously) am completely NOT okay with is how the game treats cav who get dismounted. Under no circumstances should a man who gets violently knocked off his horse be able to raise his shield and defend himself in .75 seconds. Not only does this completely destroy any attempts at realism that the game maintains, it is also absolutely abysmal for balance. I am BEGGING you, developers, to consider reworking this. The infantry players deserve to be able to bonk the cavalry they worked so hard to dismount before they stand up and become discount infantry. Im saying this as someone who plays predominantly cav as well. On the subject of cav, I would really like to see cavalry rear up when they smash into a wall at 50kph.

Control Over Protection:

Blocking
Following the back and forth between players and devs regarding block delay has been...interesting. To the devs credit, they have made great strides in increasing the players ability to block. I think at some point they realized that making the best and most unique thing about your game basically RNG was probably a bad idea. With that said, until players have complete input control over their blocking there will be people still complaining. At this point why not just go all in? Crank those parameters all the way up to 11 and see how absurdly precise and responsive the blocking can get. There is nothing to lose in doing so.

Shields
Im going to be very straight and to the point. Shields not functioning properly as shields is the #1 turnoff in terms of combat for myself and a lot of other players. Hancock had a pretty good post about it earlier and I dont want to steal his thunder, but archers and crossbows have free reign over the entire meta at the moment because infantry and cav are hapless to do anything about projectiles. The shields provided to the classes simply do not work the way they are intended. Infantry cannot approach an archer from the front without being footshot or headshot or shouldershot in some form or another. What makes matters worse is even if they do approach them and get up in the archers face, the archer can just turn around and run away. The infantry is forced to chase with his shield down in order to catch the kiting player, but the big problem in the interaction is that the archer can turn around and shoot faster than the infantry can re-raise his shield. This is an absolutely enormous problem in the infantry-archer meta and the kiting spam that has become prevalent is ruining the game for a lot of people. Shields absolutely, 100%, need to cover more and be raised faster.


I dearly hope that people take the time to read and discuss this. I have been defending Taleworlds and Bannerlord since alpha. Watching the community Ive been a part of for 6 years die because they cant deal with the issues above has been very painful. Unfortunately the bottom line is that without player control being addressed quickly and concisely, the numbers will continue to drop to the point of no return. I dont think anyone wants to see that but its just what we are going to have to deal with without some action being taken. Thank you for reading.

Good points and to reply directly to what you said...

Playing in 1.4.2 when my charging horse gets poked by a spearman the ai can get in 3 jabs at me with a spear before my horse is done rearing. Also it’s not a challenge to poke a dismounted cav provided they fall within range.

Control over movement speed is definitely an issue. Athletics should be identical across the board in mp and unit armor should not impact movement speed. After all even full plate armor doesn’t actually encumber its wearer unless we’re talking about full sprint mode.

Agreed about the responsiveness and precision. There are many things that can be done to address it but I think the devs need to really consider what an actual fight is like in order to get the movement right. Once engaged, small and precise movements to control distance, position, and the angle of the blade is what would make the dueling fun.

Archers should be op and I think it’s something the devs got right. In sp it is sufficiently difficult to use archers against well armored opponents. In mp however, from what I remember, it is way too easy for the player to snipe exposed body parts and then run away. I don’t know if the nocking and loosing of arrows takes the same time between 1.4.0 when I last played mp and 1.4.2 which I’m playing sp now.

 

[Zoonanay]

Playing in 1.4.2 when my charging horse gets poked by a spearman the ai can get in 3 jabs at me with a spear before my horse is done rearing. Also it’s not a challenge to poke a dismounted cav provided they fall within range.

I could see a spearman getting maybe 2 stabs, with the second difficult but not impossible to land. But with the current horse mechanics W+W, they will accelerate long before a 3rd attack has time to wind up despite release, human nor AI.

Dismounted cav is another thing, they recover from falling in the same period of time regardless of the speed of the horse when it was killed.

At low speeds advantage can be made from this, but a full speed cavalryman will be many meters from you before they stop, and will be able to block almost instantly as the block timer starts from when the horse is killed not when the rider hits the ground.

Smaller details like being able to move your character around when downed also make dodging or reducing the damage of attacks possible, whereas in Warband you were guaranteed to be hit, if not killed, when dismounted in front of someone.

 

[rektasaurus]

I could see a spearman getting maybe 2 stabs, with the second difficult but not impossible to land. But with the current horse mechanics W+W, they will accelerate long before a 3rd attack has time to wind up despite release, human nor AI.

Dismounted cav is another thing, they recover from falling in the same period of time regardless of the speed of the horse when it was killed.

At low speeds advantage can be made from this, but a full speed cavalryman will be many meters from you before they stop, and will be able to block almost instantly as the block timer starts from when the horse is killed not when the rider hits the ground.

Smaller details like being able to move your character around when downed also make dodging or reducing the damage of attacks possible, whereas in Warband you were guaranteed to be hit, if not killed, when dismounted in front of someone.

Well it was in a tournament against an elite unit so high pole arm skill probably played a factor in attack speed. Maybe there was a second player who stabbed me the third time I just remember thinking wow my horse reared up and by the time I could get a block up I’ve been stabbed three times.

The issue with the amount of time spent downed after being dismounted taking longer is if you’re thrown into another group of enemies they’ll still have the opportunity to stab you before you can get up anyways but the dismounted player should still have the chance to get up and get a shield up if they fall a huge distance away from the one who dismounted them in the graceful way the animation makes it seem. It’s not entirely realistic but we’re also not getting paralyzed by our horses rolling over us so I’m okay with not being able to kill a cavalryman who I dismounted and fell a good jog away from me. It’s good for game balance and makes sense in terms of “realism” anyways in mp cav units have the least amount of members. They’re not going to last long dismounted anyways.

Also I know that hitting the horse is easier but then I’ll have to contend with the rider. Hitting the rider instead of the horse is harder but kills the unit and gives me a horse.

Also for the love of god a slider to offset the center of the camera so that my lovely head doesn’t block my view would be so good. Inb4 L2mod

 

[Zoonanay]

Also I know that hitting the horse is easier but then I’ll have to contend with the rider. Hitting the rider instead of the horse is harder but kills the unit and gives me a horse.

This is true, however, cavalry have longer spears/lances than infantry 1h spears. Given an even chance cavalry will win more than not, especially considering the horse can be manouevered to protect the rider as a body shield if necessary, which is better than instantly dying.

Well it was in a tournament against an elite unit so high pole arm skill probably played a factor in attack speed. Maybe there was a second player who stabbed me the third time I just remember thinking wow my horse reared up and by the time I could get a block up I’ve been stabbed three times.

Perhaps this is the case with high lvl NPC's, I was more referencing MP as this is where combat mechanics become most determinant of outcome. But I imagine with great enough polearms skill and fast enough spear this would be possible.

The issue with the amount of time spent downed after being dismounted taking longer is if you’re thrown into another group of enemies they’ll still have the opportunity to stab you before you can get up anyways but the dismounted player should still have the chance to get up and get a shield up if they fall a huge distance away from the one who dismounted them in the graceful way the animation makes it seem. It’s not entirely realistic but we’re also not getting paralyzed by our horses rolling over us so I’m okay with not being able to kill a cavalryman who I dismounted and fell a good jog away from me. It’s good for game balance and makes sense in terms of “realism” anyways in mp cav units have the least amount of members. They’re not going to last long dismounted anyways.

Heavy horses can only be one-shot in one select situation, when headshot by a thrown projectile with high enough damage to scale with the velocity bonus. A good rider should be aware of their horse's current health, and the weapons of enemies around them, and dictate their positioning accordingly.

If a cavalry unit charges into a group of spearman, and all of them then swarm the rider as he falls from his horse, this seems a fair situation to instantly die to. If the cavalry was playing close to their team, the enemy wouldn't be able to swarm them, their team would cover them if their horse was killed giving the rider a chance to stand.

If your horse is shot, several metres from any opponent, granted you should have time to stand and defend yourself. If your horse is killed ramming into a spear, you should take a considerable blunt damage hit, or you should be defenceless long enough for the infantry to profit from their risky head-on duel. I can't see any other way to give infantry incentive to risk attacking an incoming horse, safer to let projectiles whittle it down.

 

[NightC2win]

I am with OP 100% on everything he said basically.

Missile attack meta is not only op its also really lame and frustrating, and makes little to no sense. Some of these missiles are like rifles in this game.. please fix. game is on life support.

 

[rektasaurus]

I am with OP 100% on everything he said basically.

Missile attack meta is not only op its also really lame and frustrating, and makes little to no sense. Some of these missiles are like rifles in this game.. please fix. game is on life support.

I think archery is something the devs got right. I think OP’s main points weren’t so much complaining about missiles but more about movement and stun mechanics.

But now that you mention it javelins are indeed annoying. If you don’t have a shield you’re basically going to take usually fatal damage if someone picks one up from the ground and chucks it at you and it’s very hard to dodge them when on foot or close range with cav.

1v1 arrows are not hard to dodge and it’s easy enough to cheese ai on challenging difficulty. The javelin throwers are better at predicting your path than the archers though and require a juke to dodge them. If it’s a whole squad of them suddenly targeting only me then it’s an impossible situation, as it should be, but 1v1 or in skirmish/tdm in the hands of a human they’re way more accurate and powerful than they should be.

This is true, however, cavalry have longer spears/lances than infantry 1h spears. Given an even chance cavalry will win more than not, especially considering the horse can be manouevered to protect the rider as a body shield if necessary, which is better than instantly dying.



Perhaps this is the case with high lvl NPC's, I was more referencing MP as this is where combat mechanics become most determinant of outcome. But I imagine with great enough polearms skill and fast enough spear this would be possible.



Heavy horses can only be one-shot in one select situation, when headshot by a thrown projectile with high enough damage to scale with the velocity bonus. A good rider should be aware of their horse's current health, and the weapons of enemies around them, and dictate their positioning accordingly.

If a cavalry unit charges into a group of spearman, and all of them then swarm the rider as he falls from his horse, this seems a fair situation to instantly die to. If the cavalry was playing close to their team, the enemy wouldn't be able to swarm them, their team would cover them if their horse was killed giving the rider a chance to stand.

If your horse is shot, several metres from any opponent, granted you should have time to stand and defend yourself. If your horse is killed ramming into a spear, you should take a considerable blunt damage hit, or you should be defenceless long enough for the infantry to profit from their risky head-on duel. I can't see any other way to give infantry incentive to risk attacking an incoming horse, safer to let projectiles whittle it down.

Agreed. Except in the case of cav vs infantry. Infantry can’t dictate engagement against cav and will always be defending against cav attacks or counterattacking cav in melee. They don’t have a choice but to try to kill the charging horse or its rider. Their profit is not getting lanced.

Horses actually will try really hard not run into a spear itself and would have to be stabbed with the stick but that’s neither here nor there.

More annoying is the issue with infantry. Not so much archers and cav. Archery is excellent. Horse riding is satisfying (if only my head wasn’t in the way of where my spear is being thrust, weird camera angles). Moving around and fighting on foot is, as OP said, very weird. Yes javelins are really dumb atm but that matters little when the khan’s guard is able to run circles around you and slice you up with their glaives which somehow move faster than the sword...

 

[Zoonanay]

Horses actually will try really hard not run into a spear itself and would have to be stabbed with the stick but that’s neither here nor there.

Horses had to get used to having a lance resting next to their head as well as the many freights of battle, but being stabbed isn't really something an animal as timid as a horse can get used to. Historically, if your horse gets cut significantly beyond its adrenalin's tolerance, it'd bolt with or without you still on it, it's flight in fight or flight is too overpowering.

Agreed. Except in the case of cav vs infantry. Infantry can’t dictate engagement against cav and will always be defending against cav attacks or counterattacking cav in melee. They don’t have a choice but to try to kill the charging horse or its rider. Their profit is not getting lanced.

This thread has most of the issues relating to cavalry previously disccused, in it I'll link below.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/the-many-issues-i-see-with-cavalry-in-mp.422816/

You're right infantry are often forced into dangerous situations without any capacity for them to dictate the fight. And due to the way cavalry can decelerate and accelerate in brief periods, spear damage being too low and numerous other stat issues, projectiles are effectively the only current defence against them, and still not a very effective one against competent riders on armoured horses.

More annoying is the issue with infantry. Not so much archers and cav. Archery is excellent. Horse riding is satisfying (if only my head wasn’t in the way of where my spear is being thrust, weird camera angles). Moving around and fighting on foot is, as OP said, very weird. Yes javelins are really dumb atm but that matters little when the khan’s guard is able to run circles around you and slice you up with their glaives which somehow move faster than the sword...

Once again, I'll link to a thread below that outlines what many see as the problems with archery in it's current state.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/archery-is-the-most-op-thing-in-this-game-and-it-makes-the-game-supremely-boring-and-one-dimensional.425221/

But there seems to be a consensus that archery is overpowered currently, just isn't the most prevalent issues amongst the many MP faces. Damage, aim auto-correct, and fire rate are some of the issues that have been raised amongst the numerous.

I agree that Javelins are OP though, their current damage is too high, the focus should be to provide low-medium damage to stun opponents or a high damage weapon to headshot with. Currently it's all just high damage, especially the Jareed's with their insane melee stats as well.

Infantry does also need some buffs to move them from being mobile throwing platforms that occassionally melee to being a melee-dominant role that uses thrown weapons to interrupt/support.

 

[Roberta]

On the subject of cav, I would really like to see cavalry rear up when they smash into a wall at 50kph.

Are you a European now? We call them miles per hour in the land of freedom EB.