Hi. Big fan. Been a faithful customer since before Warband, when this game was something like 500MB using DirectX 7.
So that makes it about 15 years I've been eagerly waiting, expecting for an improvement to how spears, and any other weapon that prioritizes thrusting as a main component of attack, so they may be fairly represented in the 'power balance' (so to speak) of the game.
It is now 2024, and at this point, I'm kinda wondering if there's anyone in the dev roster that really hates spears, so might still think the 15-year-old excuse of "oh if we make spears anything realistic it would be too OP, so we have to make it the most useless and pointless weapon in the game" can really convince someone? Maybe newbies will fall for that? I dunno.
But dudes like me, who've grown old WITH this game, are now having some serious doubts.
Because, over the years plenty of different suggestions have been presented, and yet nobody has even got the faintest response, or show of interest, from anyone in the dev team. So we're starting to think you're happy with leaving spears, and generally spear armed troops, as the most worthless waste of time and money in the game.
At this time, I'm pretty tired of seeing my favorite weapon -- and historically the most prominent weapon of war for something like at the least 3,000 years before modernistic warfare -- being rendered down to a mess of:
(a) Only 2 attack directions, so someone can just cover their eyes and randomly choose, and would still get a 50% chance to block
(b) Having a 2-stage attack animation with a clearly telegraphed set-up motion of up-or-down which makes defense even easier
(c) Slowest of attack speeds where the same "95 attack speed" on a sword would attack about twice, when that same "95" spear would attack once
(d) Long reach having no meaning at all, as the effect of a long-shafted thrust does nothing to stop enemy advance at all
(e) The advantage of "reach" non-existent in that all it does is serve as a handling nightmare that habitually fails to deal real damage
(f) (d) and (f) causing problems where the weapon practically fails to interrupt enemy attack even if it lands first
(g) Returning to default stance after attack is so slow, that someone can just get stabbed hard, and still just walk up front to close distance
...and all of (a)~(g) making spear-armed troops worthless in the game. To the point of becoming a joke,. A meme.
...
This is grandly disappointing, that most historical martial arts practicioners, and weapons experts/historians point out the following to an explanation on why the spear was so favored as a weapon of war:
(a) The spear, with a simple, linear thrust, is the FASTEST attacking melee weapon outside of fired projectiles.
(b) Because of (a), the spear can hit you outside of your attack range, faster than your own attack
(c) (a)+(b) makes it very difficult to defend against it without a shield
(d) Even if you slip past the point, the spear wielder himself can retreat to negate opponent advance, and retract spear to set up for another attack
(e) Even if the spearhead fails to penetrate armor, the solid, lengthy shaft sticking into your ribs prevents you from closing in
(f) And (a)~(e) combined, makes it likely that the best defense against a spear, without a shield, is to simply maintain distance
(g) And the best attack against a spear, is to attempt to exploit the opening, and then when failed, run out of distance again ASAP
(h) And (f)+(g) combined, creates what is casually referred to as "reach advantage."
So usually the best defense against a spear, is to equip a shield. Against a shield, a long spear becomes a disadvantage, so the spearman himself starts using a shield as well, and then switches to shorter spears for better handling. Because now both sides start using spears and shields as well, the fighting distance closes again and shields would be clashing, with each side attempting to stab through openings around the shield with a short infantry spear.
... and voila! That's why the spear-and-shield armed soldier, becomes the iconic, most common, most widely used troop type through hundreds, thousands of years. The other factors, like "it's easier to train en masse" "it requires less training than swords," "it's cheaper," is really just complementary factors that add to the effectiveness of spear-armed troops, not the fundamentals. Fundamentally, spears were king, because they simply were that good.
So, the devs tell us "oh gee we can't have all of those depicted the way it is because that would be OP and make that weapon dominate, make others useless."
Really? For real?
Is that why you don't have any problems with the ahistoric (yes, ahistoric) swinging-polearm armed cavalry dominating the game to the level of being considered "cheat" or "easymode" troops in the game?
Is that why you have no real problems with 2-handed weapons being considered superior choices to one-handed weapons, in a game that depicts roughly the historical settings of an era when plate armor has not yet arrived, and 1h+shield weapons were still the staple at the battlefield?
Guys, come on, anyone would agree that you can't have all of the above (a)~(h) for spears for sake of game balance. Nobody disputes this. But what people like me are disputing is, is this some kind of dichotomy? Is this, worthless, useless, shameless degradation of how poorly spears are depicted in the game currently ... no, not currently... FOR 15+ YEARS ... the only way you could do it?
Where, is the middle ground?
There have been tons of ideas concerning how spears could be done better, even when only counting since early access of Bannerlord. Certainly a lot of people had great expectations that change in weapons balance and depiction would eventually follow, and using essentially the same depictions as Warband was just a placeholder. Everyone thought that. ALL spear-lovers hoped for that.
But that never came.
...
Spears need some love, man.
So that makes it about 15 years I've been eagerly waiting, expecting for an improvement to how spears, and any other weapon that prioritizes thrusting as a main component of attack, so they may be fairly represented in the 'power balance' (so to speak) of the game.
It is now 2024, and at this point, I'm kinda wondering if there's anyone in the dev roster that really hates spears, so might still think the 15-year-old excuse of "oh if we make spears anything realistic it would be too OP, so we have to make it the most useless and pointless weapon in the game" can really convince someone? Maybe newbies will fall for that? I dunno.
But dudes like me, who've grown old WITH this game, are now having some serious doubts.
Because, over the years plenty of different suggestions have been presented, and yet nobody has even got the faintest response, or show of interest, from anyone in the dev team. So we're starting to think you're happy with leaving spears, and generally spear armed troops, as the most worthless waste of time and money in the game.
At this time, I'm pretty tired of seeing my favorite weapon -- and historically the most prominent weapon of war for something like at the least 3,000 years before modernistic warfare -- being rendered down to a mess of:
(a) Only 2 attack directions, so someone can just cover their eyes and randomly choose, and would still get a 50% chance to block
(b) Having a 2-stage attack animation with a clearly telegraphed set-up motion of up-or-down which makes defense even easier
(c) Slowest of attack speeds where the same "95 attack speed" on a sword would attack about twice, when that same "95" spear would attack once
(d) Long reach having no meaning at all, as the effect of a long-shafted thrust does nothing to stop enemy advance at all
(e) The advantage of "reach" non-existent in that all it does is serve as a handling nightmare that habitually fails to deal real damage
(f) (d) and (f) causing problems where the weapon practically fails to interrupt enemy attack even if it lands first
(g) Returning to default stance after attack is so slow, that someone can just get stabbed hard, and still just walk up front to close distance
...and all of (a)~(g) making spear-armed troops worthless in the game. To the point of becoming a joke,. A meme.
...
This is grandly disappointing, that most historical martial arts practicioners, and weapons experts/historians point out the following to an explanation on why the spear was so favored as a weapon of war:
(a) The spear, with a simple, linear thrust, is the FASTEST attacking melee weapon outside of fired projectiles.
(b) Because of (a), the spear can hit you outside of your attack range, faster than your own attack
(c) (a)+(b) makes it very difficult to defend against it without a shield
(d) Even if you slip past the point, the spear wielder himself can retreat to negate opponent advance, and retract spear to set up for another attack
(e) Even if the spearhead fails to penetrate armor, the solid, lengthy shaft sticking into your ribs prevents you from closing in
(f) And (a)~(e) combined, makes it likely that the best defense against a spear, without a shield, is to simply maintain distance
(g) And the best attack against a spear, is to attempt to exploit the opening, and then when failed, run out of distance again ASAP
(h) And (f)+(g) combined, creates what is casually referred to as "reach advantage."
So usually the best defense against a spear, is to equip a shield. Against a shield, a long spear becomes a disadvantage, so the spearman himself starts using a shield as well, and then switches to shorter spears for better handling. Because now both sides start using spears and shields as well, the fighting distance closes again and shields would be clashing, with each side attempting to stab through openings around the shield with a short infantry spear.
... and voila! That's why the spear-and-shield armed soldier, becomes the iconic, most common, most widely used troop type through hundreds, thousands of years. The other factors, like "it's easier to train en masse" "it requires less training than swords," "it's cheaper," is really just complementary factors that add to the effectiveness of spear-armed troops, not the fundamentals. Fundamentally, spears were king, because they simply were that good.
So, the devs tell us "oh gee we can't have all of those depicted the way it is because that would be OP and make that weapon dominate, make others useless."
Really? For real?
Is that why you don't have any problems with the ahistoric (yes, ahistoric) swinging-polearm armed cavalry dominating the game to the level of being considered "cheat" or "easymode" troops in the game?
Is that why you have no real problems with 2-handed weapons being considered superior choices to one-handed weapons, in a game that depicts roughly the historical settings of an era when plate armor has not yet arrived, and 1h+shield weapons were still the staple at the battlefield?
Guys, come on, anyone would agree that you can't have all of the above (a)~(h) for spears for sake of game balance. Nobody disputes this. But what people like me are disputing is, is this some kind of dichotomy? Is this, worthless, useless, shameless degradation of how poorly spears are depicted in the game currently ... no, not currently... FOR 15+ YEARS ... the only way you could do it?
Where, is the middle ground?
There have been tons of ideas concerning how spears could be done better, even when only counting since early access of Bannerlord. Certainly a lot of people had great expectations that change in weapons balance and depiction would eventually follow, and using essentially the same depictions as Warband was just a placeholder. Everyone thought that. ALL spear-lovers hoped for that.
But that never came.
...
Spears need some love, man.
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Don't think I will ever see one.
