Horse master perk bad game design?

[blackfalcon]

I just created my first full archer character in bannerlord and have committed to going a foot troop which I really have never done in warband history.
One thing warband has always struggled with is justifying why you should ever consider going a foot troop over cavalry due to the inherent benefit riding on a horse provides. Bannerlord does this better with the athletic perks being far superior to the riding perks.
The main advantage of going foot soldier, however, has always been access to better weapons than cavalry. Crossbows are the obvious example where most crossbows can not be reloaded while on horseback. However, there are also polearms and bows that can not be used on horseback. This means there are pros and cons to both going on foot and on horse. Even tho in practice horseback is better overall, there are atleast reasons why someone could go on foot and not have it be objectively worse in every way.

This is where the horse master perk comes in (use any bow on horseback). This perk basically single handedly makes being a foot archer objectively worse than being a horse archer, no ambiguity, no nuance, there is simply no circumstance or situation where being a foot archer provides even a single advantage, even if that is matched by 10 disadvantages. Furthermore, the perk that you have to choose between is 3 extra arrows. While this is nice to have if you are on foot, it still benefits horse archers equally and does not give a reason to not be a horse archer should you take it. In short, the alternative does not give a comparative advantage to foot archers to make the choice of going foot archer even a realistic choice.

I guess I am proposing (and polling) three possible changes.
1. Remove this perk and replace it with something else.
2. Change this perk so that while a number of new bows can be used on horseback, the best of the best bows (like the noble longbow) are still exclusive to foot
3. Change the alternative talent to something that benefits foot archers significantly and exclusively, like 'when on foot gain 25% bow accuracy and 15% missile speed' and maybe add more perks to athletics that buff archery.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

What's bad is that it's worthless perk because the noble bow is still better then the noble long bow, not to mention it's kinda silly that there's only 1 decent bow in the game you need the perk for. All the other foot only bows are nothing special and a 2k Nordic short bow is all you need until noble bow. It's just 1 of many many perks that has no value or support in the actual game. I have more to say, edits incoming.

Bannerlord does this better with the athletic perks being far superior to the riding perks.

Athletics is snake oil! It looks like a great value on paper but the reality is it takes so much longer raise it then riding and the +hp 275+ is so late it barely matters. Sure some is helpful and you might as well put fp into it, but trying to be a foot unit in normal battle for athletics skill is really subpar. Sure, if you want to be a foot warrior that's another story.

Furthermore, the perk that you have to choose between is 3 extra arrows.

It's a petty worthless perk for sure.

I think a good change would be to put the perk in bow and not riding and have it be a choice between "use any bow on horse" and say "You get +accuracy (or speed, damage...) on foot!" SO that it's clear "do I want to be better on horse or on foot" and + accuracy would improve the noble long bow (or lesser longbows)greatly as that's a very noticeable downside to it over the noble bow. As is, you will miss shots that noble bow would land.

*IME the Noble bow is much better for me then the noble long bow. YMMV
*If you don't want a mounted party or care about map speed or only want to be a foot man, then athletics is fine and dandy and riding not so hot.
*Horse master is incredible for NPC captain as the +skill will extend the firing range of bow/HA units under thier command.

 

[anoddhermit]

I voted remove horse mastery - it looks stupid and feels gamey and out of place to use long bows from horseback.

Some of the foot bows could use a buff, and bow stats tweaked generally too.

 

[blackfalcon]

Athletics is snake oil! It looks like a great value on paper but the reality is it takes so much longer raise it then riding and the +hp 275+ is so late it barely matters. Sure some is helpful and you might as well put fp into it, but trying to be a foot unit in normal battle for athletics skill is really subpar. Sure, if you want to be a foot warrior that's another story.

yea I mean athletics is worse than riding in general, however, atleast it has some unique stuff that actually gives a reason to try it.

 

[khuzait haircut]

Shooting a bow on foot is more accurate by far. That's the only advantage. On horse your crosshair will never be as good.

 

[EmptyPepsiCans]

Athletics used to be awesome. You could invest there and become an armored death cheetah. Pity they needed it to hell and ruined being a foot soldier.

As others have said, that Horse Master perk is meaningless. The best bow available can already be used from horseback (as can big, choppy glaives and the like), so what's the difference?

 

[Antaeus]

I've tried a few play throughs on foot... I always end up on a horse sooner or later.

The big issue for me is strategic awareness and mobility. Mounted you can see the field, or you can move to where you can see. On foot you're always limited by your height, and nobody on foot can out run a pureblood.

Who needs accuracy at range when you can ride up to someone and shoot them point blank in the face?

 

[flarebright]

I like those perks the way the are. The actually offer meaningful choice to me and about half the time i opt for larger quiver perks.

Pros for deep quiver:
with two quivers that 6 extra arrows for you (more arrows are more dead enemies and more exp earned from archery during battle).
it gives more arrows to your troops. I will take two more arrows on each of my archers thank you very much.
Comparing noble bow damage and noble long bow at the highest level of archery skill there are plenty of times you will one shot (especially lower ranked troops which are bigger % of AI armies) with noble bow making noble long bow overkill.
You can still benefit from extra arrows when fighting on foot with noble long bow (In sieges i fight on foot, when farming athletics exp late game i fight on foot).

Pros for use any bow on horse:
Noble long bow will allow you to some times one shot enemies that noble bow will not. This will be especially more common if you don't go all in on archery/control and stop before last damage increasing perk tier.
You only need to buy one noble long bow for you character (instead of both noble long bow and noble bow for different situations).
Its a bit on the epic/fantasy side which can scratch that Legolas itch.
Bigger numbers feels good.

Honestly comparing the two perks above i think this is a rare case where we get a good trade off between different perk effect both of which are usefull. And the choice that you end up going with will heavily depend on personal play style and character costumisation.

 

[EmptyPepsiCans]

Shooting a bow on foot is more accurate by far. That's the only a

I've tried a few play throughs on foot... I always end up on a horse sooner or later.

The big issue for me is strategic awareness and mobility. Mounted you can see the field, or you can move to where you can see. On foot you're always limited by your height, and nobody on foot can out run a pureblood.

Who needs accuracy at range when you can ride up to someone and shoot them point blank in the face?

I mostly miss the old Athletics speed boosts because I like the Freelancer mod. (For those who are unfamiliar) the mod lets you join a lord's party starting as a tier 1 peon and work your way up to a top tier monster. It was fun being a Darkhan or Legionary (or even dismounting as a Khan's Guard) and wading into the fray. Since the update I can't keep up with the fray. It sucks.

I agree about battlefield awareness, but even that wasn't so bad before the huge foot mobility nerf. You couldn't run a fight from the ground as well as you could from horseback, but it wasn't so far off either. You also had the option of setting things up then dismounting to fight, but that's no longer viable either.

 

[blackfalcon]

I like those perks the way the are. The actually offer meaningful choice to me and about half the time i opt for larger quiver perks.

Pros for deep quiver:
with two quivers that 6 extra arrows for you (more arrows are more dead enemies and more exp earned from archery during battle).
it gives more arrows to your troops. I will take two more arrows on each of my archers thank you very much.
Comparing noble bow damage and noble long bow at the highest level of archery skill there are plenty of times you will one shot (especially lower ranked troops which are bigger % of AI armies) with noble bow making noble long bow overkill.
You can still benefit from extra arrows when fighting on foot with noble long bow (In sieges i fight on foot, when farming athletics exp late game i fight on foot).

Pros for use any bow on horse:
Noble long bow will allow you to some times one shot enemies that noble bow will not. This will be especially more common if you don't go all in on archery/control and stop before last damage increasing perk tier.
You only need to buy one noble long bow for you character (instead of both noble long bow and noble bow for different situations).
Its a bit on the epic/fantasy side which can scratch that Legolas itch.
Bigger numbers feels good.

Honestly comparing the two perks above i think this is a rare case where we get a good trade off between different perk effect both of which are usefull. And the choice that you end up going with will heavily depend on personal play style and character costumisation.

The point isnt making those two perks comparable for horse archers, it is giving a reason to play as a foot archer. The horse master perk gives horse archers the one advantage that they shouldnt have, the ability to use longbows on horseback, which, is simply ridiculous. If you used a longbow on a horse the horse would occupy the space needed to pull the bowstring back, that is why this never happened. Whether or not you usually go with extra ammo (probably because the recurve bow is better for some reason) only proves my point, that both perks are for horse archers. Why not give a perk for the foot archer. Horse master gives 0 benefit for foot archer so the alternative should give 0 benefit for the horse archer or they should both give benefit to both.

 

[mujadaddy]

1) The Perk system and the Focus Point system are utter trash and need to be re-specc'ed and re-moved, re-spectively.

2) Don't think of it as a nerf for Foot archers, think of it as a Heroic Bonus for high Riding skill

3) Yeah, there's not even a good bow for it

 

[Poddicus]

Perks in general are bad game design
Imagine playing Skyrim and thinking its well thought out

 

[mujadaddy]

"Congratulations on leveling this skill up! You may choose between a very weak bonus and a weak, very situational bonus! Don't worry, neither of them probably work, we won't explain why either is good, and you're the player, why are you choosing Governor perks?! Haha!"

 

[Marajah]

The whole perk thing is bad game design. It makes no sense they use the same system for both the player and companions with lots of redundant or unattainable perks for both.

That said, horse master has little impact overall. By the time time you get to it, damage bonuses from both archery tree and speed make most bows deadly on horse.

On other aspect, being a melee foot soldier used to turn the player into a far more reliable whirlwind of death in the battlefield than trying to do the same on a horse, but I haven't played the game since they nerfed on foot speed scaling

 

[mujadaddy]

The whole perk thing is bad game design.

Huzzah; there's no THEME to it. Or rather there are 60 different bonii across the tree, so it's not like you can theme yourself without reading. Every. Perk. Every. Time.

Also, the perks are 90% of the time junk, even the better one.

 

[mortache]

Longbows were very commonly used on horseback. Nomads with compound (recurve) bows were famous for horse archery, but they're famous for all things cavalry. Western nobles preferred to use lances on horseback and archers were the boots on the ground regular soldiers, that's why the common image of a western longbowman (like the Welsh for example) has them on foot. But plenty of actual medieval artwork show longbows being used on horses.

In fact, I don't see why longbows do more damage than recurves anyways. The only advantage of longbows was that its super cheap to produce. Maaaaybe in the rain it could be more robust i.e you could use more power without risking it coming apart, but a recurve bow is just as powerful in normal circumstances. Shorter draw length, but the curved tips act like little trebuchets giving more efficient transfer of energy.

 

[Fantomen]

I agree that perk should be removed.

Instead there should be several perks in the bow tree where you choose between specialising in foot or horse archery, and a finished maxed out build should give enough advantages in terms of accuracy, speed and damage to the foot archer to be balanced against the mobility advantage of a horse.

For melee builds I feel like being on foot is already pretty good if you are skilled at blocking and kicking etc. A dedicated 2H or polearm + athletics build can rack up kills extremely fast and carry the infantry fight. You can't solo cheese armies the way you can with a horse of course.

 

[Apocal]

In fact, I don't see why longbows do more damage than recurves anyways.

Pure gamification. The same reason they get foot archers more range than horse archers in Total War.

 

[mortache]

Pure gamification. The same reason they get foot archers more range than horse archers in Total War.

I mean, horse archery is already more inaccurate in the game anyways, and it "kinda" does make sense. But the longbow thing is just giving in to stereotypes originating from England. While on that note, thrust animations should be twice as fast and spears should do more damage