I thought cavalry would be the natural counter to archers.

[Forsee]

taking more armor on your horse actually makes sense

Some factions (Idk which as im not a cav player) have a choice between horse armour and increased horse hp. Armour is good against melee weapon, hp is good against arrows. So you have a way to increase your survivability.
As I said several times, horses shouldn't be unkillable, tanking like 8 shots in horse body or 3-4 headshots is already good enough and I don't think it is unbalanced. I know you all guys want to ride one horse the whole round and not get dismounted, but that's not how the balance works

Guess, we're playing two different games then

I'm only talking about competitive or pickups, idk what's going on on public skirmishes, mnb has never been a balanced game on pubs with possibility of taking whole team archers for example

 

[Younes]

Should a heavy cataphract not be able to deal with an archer?

 

[Spottswoode]

If the heavy cataphract gets shot in the head enough, probably not

 

[The_Great_White]

Some factions (Idk which as im not a cav player) have a choice between horse armour and increased horse hp. Armour is good against melee weapon, hp is good against arrows. So you have a way to increase your survivability.
As I said several times, horses shouldn't be unkillable, tanking like 8 shots in horse body or 3-4 headshots is already good enough and I don't think it is unbalanced. I know you all guys want to ride one horse the whole round and not get dismounted, but that's not how the balance works

I'm only talking about competitive or pickups, idk what's going on on public skirmishes, mnb has never been a balanced game on pubs with possibility of taking whole team archers for example

Well, that's surprising, because I'm talking about competitive aswell. Never saw light horses tank more than 2 hits.
If you want to see the true up**** archers can be, play a public round against Resolute, they go 5 archers 1 Cav and it's absolutely devastating. Their teamplay is great but the fact, that archers are simply untouchable is what's ruining the gameplay for me (and other people according to the posts I read here)
It's not about that horses can die with 2 hits, that's fine, but the situation that you can't touch an archer is just not right

 

[hoonii]

Should a heavy cataphract not be able to deal with an archer?

On paper it should, though all archers just decimate the most armored horse the whole Empire has with 2-3 shots.
You shoot either the head or the neck of the horse twice and cav is just basically out of the combat; the horse will either have very low hp that it will die to a kick or it will die to the arrows.
My main point is, a goddamn heavy bow should not be able to fire faster than a cavalry can ready his spear. This happens quite often. Bows should be slowed down, but instead TW is going to speed them up which might be the worst idea they have taken for this game ever, after the crush through fiasco. Also both the throwables and bows are still very accurate when used without holding left click, it still results in %75 of the shots going in the middle of the crosshair(in beta).

 

[Forsee]

Never saw light horses tank more than 2 hits.

That hardly depends on relative speed, if horse is charging archer on it's full speed it will take like 200 dmg, and if it's riding somewhere in the fight it will only take 90-100 dmg. As I said you need a really strong reason to charge archer alone on the horse

 

[Mushbeast]

On paper it should, though all archers just decimate the most armored horse the whole Empire has with 2-3 shots.
You shoot either the head or the neck of the horse twice and cav is just basically out of the combat; the horse will either have very low hp that it will die to a kick or it will die to the arrows.
My main point is, a goddamn heavy bow should not be able to fire faster than a cavalry can ready his spear. This happens quite often. Bows should be slowed down, but instead TW is going to speed them up which might be the worst idea they have taken for this game ever, after the crush through fiasco. Also both the throwables and bows are still very accurate when used without holding left click, it still results in %75 of the shots going in the middle of the crosshair(in beta).

The arrows should do little to no damage as the bow is readying up (before the crosshair has steadied) as I imagine the idea behind it is that's where you're pulling the string back before you manage to lock it in place and would therefore have less power to the arrow. I agree that it's a mistake to buff archers in any way beside the AI changes, and I thought this update would actually end up nerfing them or changing the mechanics in a way that made them more fun to play against, but I guess not.

At least they've stated with the new system in place they can easily adjust different weapon mechanics and hopefully fix these problems in a more timely manner but from what I've read from the developers responses to similar issues is that they want to show the true brutality of ranged combat. That sounds cool and all, but it's simply way too easy to land shots as an archer in game than it is to accurately hit even a target in real life.

 

[SuperBroHeroFella]

Often enough I can only hit the head of the horse trying to snipe the rider off. If a bowman does this to you, you deserve it. Take a chill pill, OP.

All around good comments in this thread.

 

[hoonii]

Often enough I can only hit the head of the horse trying to snipe the rider off. If a bowman does this to you, you deserve it. Take a chill pill, OP.

All around good comments in this thread.

We surely play at different levels mate.

 

[Spottswoode]

We surely play at different levels mate.

Maybe that's just it

 

[Moton]

I think the issue I gathered from the post is that most bows (haven't tried in 1.5.5 beta) ready and shoot an arrow quicker than the attack animation of most weapons can get released. That's an annoying problem imo.

I can agree that cavalry aren't the be-all-end-all killing machines, and mainly thrive when the enemy force is split up and disorientated but they really are the natural counters to archers due to their speed and manoeuvrability. As long as you have a shield you should be fine, but as stated earlier it can be a ***** to just get a stab in. Like most of the issues I have with the game, it comes down to archery being too easy again.

The thing is that Cav is not supposed to automatically be able to kill archers. What are archers supposed to do if the fastest unit i the game (By a long shot) means death for him? That's not balance at all. If a cav player is smart and good he can still kill a archer but that needs skill, just as it is supposed to be. Or if he for any reason cant kill him he can still make them useless. I agree that some tweaks can be made but Cav is in a pretty good place IMO.

 

[WakaWaka]

People please, there is a difference between light an heavy cav, most arguments here are completetly worthless because they dont address specific issues, its more a collection of rants.

This.

 

[Mushbeast]

The thing is that Cav is not supposed to automatically be able to kill archers. What are archers supposed to do if the fastest unit i the game (By a long shot) means death for him? That's not balance at all. If a cav player is smart and good he can still kill a archer but that needs skill, just as it is supposed to be. Or if he for any reason cant kill him he can still make them useless. I agree that some tweaks can be made but Cav is in a pretty good place IMO.

Yeah, I know that and it'd be practically impossible to design any mechanic where the cavalry have any more advantage against archers than they do already, but I was thinking more along the lines of nerfing archery or switching up the mechanics somehow. Projectiles are extremely powerful in the game, which isn't a bad thing on it's own, but the way aiming works in my opinion is too simple and easy. I'd say remove the crosshair and add more drop, but even that might not fix it.

 

[Moton]

Yeah, I know that and it'd be practically impossible to design any mechanic where the cavalry have any more advantage against archers than they do already, but I was thinking more along the lines of nerfing archery or switching up the mechanics somehow. Projectiles are extremely powerful in the game, which isn't a bad thing on it's own, but the way aiming works in my opinion is too simple and easy. I'd say remove the crosshair and add more drop, but even that might not fix it.

Yeah it is indeed a hard one. Is it the beta branch you'r refering to when you say that archers are to OP? 1.5.5?

 

[WakaWaka]

Yeah, I know that and it'd be practically impossible to design any mechanic where the cavalry have any more advantage against archers than they do already, but I was thinking more along the lines of nerfing archery or switching up the mechanics somehow. Projectiles are extremely powerful in the game, which isn't a bad thing on it's own, but the way aiming works in my opinion is too simple and easy. I'd say remove the crosshair and add more drop, but even that might not fix it.

If you want to deal easily with a shooter, just learn how to bump/slash him

 

[Fïshe]

most bows (haven't tried in 1.5.5 beta) ready and shoot an arrow quicker than the attack animation of most weapons can get released.

IF it was ever a problem it would indeed be annoying. But it takes just over a full second to draw a 'fast' bow, and less than half a second to throw a wild swing from a two-handed axe. The problem OP mentioned comes from his own (misguided) notion of what cavalry should be, vs what they are in-game.

 

[Mushbeast]

It's already pretty annoying, from the perspective of infantry at least. You're practically forced to hold your shield up until the you're close enough that the archer starts staggering, and if they're a good player they'll kick-shot you at that point too. Of course it's not a massive problem, and it works the way it is now, but like so many of the mechanics in the game it could be so much better

 

[SGaming_Can]

"cavalry counters archers" is only a legitimate thing to say when a GROUP of cavalry encounters a GROUP of archers in a battle. So yeah, it comes down to formations and how units behave when in masses. There are no magical (+50% damage against archers) bonuses assigned to units like in age of empires.

Combat units act dramatically different when they are grouped versus in case of a 1 on 1 in some street (how it mostly is in bannerlord mp).

A horse is not an easy thing to maneuver, if it does not have armor it is fragile, and you cannot micro manage our movements on a horse when it is at high speed. An armoured lance charge works wonders when done in formation against a MASS of enemies, but it is hardly effective when done by a single horseman with the aim of killing a single enemy.

To put it into perspective, lets say you have a great bombard. That bombard can tear down entire walls and kill 30+ soldiers in one shot. However if you tried to aim that same mortar towards ONE specific guy who is walking around the streets in the city you are besiegeing, you are not going to get a satisfactory result, but this will not mean the artillery is not a good anti-infantry asset. Or how one musketeer trying to shoot one guy in the distance doesnt succeed while a regiment of line infantry can kill a good 20+ enemies in one volley.

also most of the time the players in this game the skill gap is massive. So yes balance issues do exist but also if you are an average casual player against a proper clan member you are going to get messed up pretty hard no matter what your class is. Doesn't matter if he is a peasant with a butter knife and you a cataphract he will dismount you and proceed to kick you around and continously stab you in the face while circling around you. The game need a good rank system. But before that it somehow need to come back to life, either with good mods announcements or major updates, or private owned servers. The way things are, no balancing is any important because what are you balancing for if you dont have people playing.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

A fews reason for this:

1) Manoeuvrability. In BL cavalry feel very manoeuvrable at high speed but this doesn't seem to improve as speed decreases, which feels counter-intuitive. The result is cav are encouraged to do high speed hit and runs, easily turning right angles at top speed with couches, but struggling to confidently slow down, turn, and get stuck in on fights for a longer period of time.

2) Fairly high threshold required to bumpstab. This is easier than earlier in development but it still feels like you need to be going a good 50% of speed at least to reliably bump stab. Otherwise you simply move the opponent around in an awkward manner while they damage your horse or, frequently, accidentally hit your foot doing a decent amount of damage. Again, this encourages hit and run instead as it's simply safer and more damaging, but the payoff is the archer is less disrupted (unless dead!)

3) You can't dismount on archer because they can simply take your horse. In Warband for example, if you were winning but your horse was low, or an archer was in a really threatening spot difficult for cav to reach, you could ride up, dismount on them, and disrupt them that way by keeping them in melee while the rest of the team fought.

Some solutions:

A) Tweak the turning stats for horses to be slightly easier at lower speeds and slightly harder at high speeds, should stop the race car drifting couches and encourage sticking around in fights.

B) Very slighty reduce the threshold for bumpstabs, and if possible completely stop or heavily reduce the moving people around aspect of cav. IMO Warband was broken when it came to bumpstabs but it did provide a balancing aspect to archers, so there should be a middleground.

 

[hoonii]

"cavalry counters archers" is only a legitimate thing to say when a GROUP of cavalry encounters a GROUP of archers in a battle. So yeah, it comes down to formations and how units behave when in masses. There are no magical (+50% damage against archers) bonuses assigned to units like in age of empires.

Combat units act dramatically different when they are grouped versus in case of a 1 on 1 in some street (how it mostly is in bannerlord mp).

A horse is not an easy thing to maneuver, if it does not have armor it is fragile, and you cannot micro manage our movements on a horse when it is at high speed. An armoured lance charge works wonders when done in formation against a MASS of enemies, but it is hardly effective when done by a single horseman with the aim of killing a single enemy.

To put it into perspective, lets say you have a great bombard. That bombard can tear down entire walls and kill 30+ soldiers in one shot. However if you tried to aim that same mortar towards ONE specific guy who is walking around the streets in the city you are besiegeing, you are not going to get a satisfactory result, but this will not mean the artillery is not a good anti-infantry asset. Or how one musketeer trying to shoot one guy in the distance doesnt succeed while a regiment of line infantry can kill a good 20+ enemies in one volley.

also most of the time the players in this game the skill gap is massive. So yes balance issues do exist but also if you are an average casual player against a proper clan member you are going to get messed up pretty hard no matter what your class is. Doesn't matter if he is a peasant with a butter knife and you a cataphract he will dismount you and proceed to kick you around and continously stab you in the face while circling around you. The game need a good rank system. But before that it somehow need to come back to life, either with good mods announcements or major updates, or private owned servers. The way things are, no balancing is any important because what are you balancing for if you dont have people playing.

Idk man archers still shouldn't be able to draw their bows under a second, do 360 and shoot with perfect accuracy. Also it kinda doesn't matter if you have a shield or not, because your legs are in the open and you will always get shot there for full damage as if you were hit to your chest. Archers are a bit broken yet devs still buff them that's a big no no.