It's 2024. Spears still suck

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kweassa

Sergeant at Arms
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.
 
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Totally agree, thrusting weapons need a revamp, make them historic. Your description is excellent, describes the situation well. I suspect it would take alot of work, with new animations etc, that's why they are baulking ?

I've always wanted a "Peasant Pitch Fork Phalanx" ... just for a laugh :grin: Don't think I will ever see one.
 
+1

Taleworlds turn a deaf ear to this issue and many others... projectile damage... armour protection in relation to weapon damage...etc....Although Dejan (and now Piconi) I'm sure has brought it to the devs debate table..."the committee of the nay"... basically doesn't care.

We provided feedback to fill a football stadium and yet; NOTHING in +4 years. There are things that are too basic to not be implemented in the base game and have to be brought in through modding.

#thehamsterwheel
giphy.gif
 
yeah, if you fight in arena you would know the spear and shield is basically useless, single hand sword and shield is the best way.

The Problem is spear and shield cant keep distance against enemy, and spear need distance to thrust, but enemy always getting too close and you can't really thrust them.
 
+1

Taleworlds turn a deaf ear to this issue and many others... projectile damage... armour protection in relation to weapon damage...etc....Although Dejan (and now Piconi) I'm sure has brought it to the devs debate table..."the committee of the nay"... basically doesn't care.

We provided feedback to fill a football stadium and yet; NOTHING in +4 years. There are things that are too basic to not be implemented in the base game and have to be brought in through modding.

#thehamsterwheel
giphy.gif

Interestingly, as of 1.2.8 I have ZERO qualms with projectile damage, and overall armor protection. For a fact, I can say current 1.2.8 is the best armor protection depicted in vanilla game I've seen in the entire franchise.

I dunno what they changed -- I'm guessing it's one (or perhaps multiple of) changes to penetration factors, damage debuff via handling, or maybe decreased speed bonus values -- but armor really protects well. On average for all types of attacks received, I receive less than half I used to in prior versions with armor protection just worth around 20-30kg weight. Nowadays I can even time my attacks to intentionally trade blows, knowing that if I "roll with the attack" the armor will mitigate damage down to extremely low levels, enough to not interrupt my own attack.

Even an unlucky head-on hit by enemy weapons while passing by on a full-speed horse, will typically do only like 15~18 damage -- whereas in prior versions, easily 50+ and even a one-shot.

So I'm massively grateful to how they were able to tweak this just right. So I know the devs can do it.


It's not like I'm asking for HEMA-level spearfighting... I just want a spear that works.


As of current, like in the old versions, the only way to make my spear 'viable', is to simply be The Flash a la Athletics. Be so fast, that you can just run away from anything, and abuse the kick-thrust combo attack like crazy. And with athletics like that, if I just drop the spear and use some other weapon, I'd be doing a lot better... so it's kinda insulting. You just have to play a spearman in this game purely out of love.

And that sucks, man.
 
What's hilarious is how absurdly strong swinging polearms are, as the Khan's Guard especially makes obvious, yet somehow regular old spear thrusts being faster would be overpowered ?

There are certain things I've stopped hoping will change though. We've had a long time of patently obvious troop imbalances and the culture bonus disparity where Battania was way better than everything else and yet still for some reason got buffed while Sturgia got nerfed lol. Plus, smithing, which seems to resist being brought down to earth as an income source.
 
What's hilarious is how absurdly strong swinging polearms are, as the Khan's Guard especially makes obvious, yet somehow regular old spear thrusts being faster would be overpowered ?

There are certain things I've stopped hoping will change though. We've had a long time of patently obvious troop imbalances and the culture bonus disparity where Battania was way better than everything else and yet still for some reason got buffed while Sturgia got nerfed lol. Plus, smithing, which seems to resist being brought down to earth as an income source.

Overpowered AND ahistoric. Swinging polearms are exceptionally rare in history, in that it involves upper torso movement in directions that are not aligned with the direction of horse's travel, where the problem of torque becomes way more prevalent than using a spear, or a 1h sword. This is the reason why you rarely -- if ever -- see other long weapons upon horseback as well. Like, why were there no greatswords or zweihaenders on horseback? Same thing.

At speed, this translates into a dismounting hazard. Even the standard spears or lances, when the attack isn't timed right, or lands at incorrect angles, the rider must release his weapon lest consequentially, the rider can fall off, or at extremes it can even topple the horse along with the rider if the rider is well-fastened through stirrups, and the resulting force tilts the horse along with the falling rider.

So, swinging polearms itself were very rare, and the few isolated usages we see popping up in history first come from the Mongols, and even among Mongols it was rare. Most Mongol elite, heavy cavalry were armed similar to any European knight -- lance + sword/saber.

The only historical army that saw SOME use of swinging polearms in SOME numbers, were the late 16th-early 17th century Chinese Ming army, and only in the cavalry troops stationed at northern borders fighting against nomadic invaders. And if you see the resources, those glaives on horseback were way shorter, held in a grip almost in the dead center to minimize torque problems -- not like how the Khan's Guard in this game where they hold it in the bottom 1/3rd position and take long, wide swings off to the side. If someone swings a polearm like that on top of horseback, it may cause leverage effect that's big enough to force the rider to fall off.

All the Khan's Guard, should just be armed with lances, as a souped-up version of heavy lancers. Not frickin' horde of mythical Guan Yu.
 
Overpowered AND ahistoric. Swinging polearms are exceptionally rare in history, in that it involves upper torso movement in directions that are not aligned with the direction of horse's travel, where the problem of torque becomes way more prevalent than using a spear, or a 1h sword. This is the reason why you rarely -- if ever -- see other long weapons upon horseback as well. Like, why were there no greatswords or zweihaenders on horseback? Same thing.

At speed, this translates into a dismounting hazard. Even the standard spears or lances, when the attack isn't timed right, or lands at incorrect angles, the rider must release his weapon lest consequentially, the rider can fall off, or at extremes it can even topple the horse along with the rider if the rider is well-fastened through stirrups, and the resulting force tilts the horse along with the falling rider.
If a swinging polearm on horseback is that forceful, yet able to be blocked by a peasants sickle, that force has to transfer somewhere right? That's the ridiculous reason why they aren't supposed to work in reality.

I enjoy using it too no doubt, it's fun in a way, but if they made those weapons disabled for horseback (like they do for a few others), fair compromise.
KG's are still strong on horseback, set of bow+arrows with either a glaive+sword, or sword+board, or even 2 sets of quivers+sword.

The only issue too though, those polearms are inferior on foot (besides the shorter glaive) compared to other weapons; except spears...
 
I'll just post this good classic Lindybeige video showing exactly how powerful the spear is. Keep in mind the people in this video were very experienced with fighting with swords, but were completely beginners at spears.

As for making the power of the spear apparent in mount & blade I am not sure how it can be done without altering the mechanics completely. The main issue of hand-eye-coordination not being that great in a 3rd person game as in real life will always be an issue. However, my proposed changes is to just triple (maybe quintuple) the thrust damage of all spears and double the speed of spear thrust attacks when used 2-handed.
 
I'll just post this good classic Lindybeige video showing exactly how powerful the spear is. Keep in mind the people in this video were very experienced with fighting with swords, but were completely beginners at spears.

As for making the power of the spear apparent in mount & blade I am not sure how it can be done without altering the mechanics completely. The main issue of hand-eye-coordination not being that great in a 3rd person game as in real life will always be an issue. However, my proposed changes is to just triple (maybe quintuple) the thrust damage of all spears and double the speed of spear thrust attacks when used 2-handed.

I'd pick out the speed problem as being the most urgent.

Speed of thrust needs to be faster. Using the current metrics of speed measurement, infantry short spears of under 1.8m length are usually around 85~95 in speed. Long spears usually used by cavalry are slower, something like 80~85, and super-long pikes and lances are slower. Thrusts are usually the fastest motions of any elongated weapon and yet, it's the slowest attack in this game.

For example, when I see an opening in enemy defense (moments when I evade an attack, or they wiff the attack), a sword with "95 speed" will connect reliably with a swinging attack -- and yet, a spear with same "95 speed" fails almost every time. Both are same "95 speed" but this is clearly not an objective indicator of speed that applies to different weapons equally.

So, under this standard, shorter infantry spears should be increased to something like 120~150 speed. It already has only two attack directions, so as counter-balance, the attack itself should actually be fast enough that you have to react almost immediately with the opponent's up/down stance change to block properly. Otherwise, if you're even a little bit late, you'll be hit.

Now, this will make even AI enemies with spears extremely lethal if you have no shield -- especially if the enemy AI is at a level that uses feints. You already have to react immediately to attack motion, so even a slight confusion with feints will be very lethal. So, if even the AI can be so threatening, what would you do? You'd try to stay away from it. Remember how in 1vs1 fights you usually stand your ground, but when it becomes many vs 1 you keep on backing away? That's basically what you should be doing if you're facing a spear without a shield. Back up, try to find an opening, find a chance and then attempt to attack, and then get back out of range.

Currently, you know how to stay invincible against spears? Just walk laterally. No spear-wielder in game can hit you if you just walk right. True story. Try it. See someone with spear in a tournament? Keep walking right while facing him (resulting in circular movement). There's no way the guy hits you. That's how stupidly slow the current spears are, so I would rather have a hard time against AI with spears, than have them be that stupid.

Some may ask: "But what if there are multiple spearmen?? They have long weapons, they attack fast, so even the 'kill one by one running away' wouldn't work easily against that. It would be much more difficult than fighting multiple enemies with short weapons."

Gee, that's great. That's EXACTLY what spears are supposed to do, and why spearmen are the staple, and why shields were important. Look at the linked video in above post in how effective a shield is, against a spear.. and then, look at how even that dynamic changes when the fight becomes a group vs. group. That's spears. It needs to be fast. If it's the slowest weapon as it is now, there's no point, like, at all.
 
I can only fully agree with the OP, I was hopeful of a significant improvement to spears, among other things, from Warband. I haven't played Bannerlord for over 3 years now; though I've always intended to get back into at some point I'm not expecting it to be the game I had once hoped for.
 
I can only fully agree with the OP, I was hopeful of a significant improvement to spears, among other things, from Warband. I haven't played Bannerlord for over 3 years now; though I've always intended to get back into at some point I'm not expecting it to be the game I had once hoped for.
Overall spears feel better in Bannerlord than Warband in my opinion, and while the addition of "upper thrust" improves the spear, the reason spears feel better in BL is probably more due to factors extraneous to the spear itself; collision in BL is soooo much better than in WB (even if its still not perfect), horses feel better to use, and 1 handed in horseback is harder to use and infantry AI performs much better against mounted units in defending themselves, making spears on horseback a better choice (but mounted 1h is still very much usable in BL, just a bit more precise and dangerous). Also, there are a lot of damage increase perks in the polearms skill, the one that is especially notable is the +50% damage to head hits with spears. However, spears still feel wonky to use (and pikes feel like **** imo), underpowered, and requires higher skillpoints to be viable compared to other weapons, where it should be the exact opposite.

On another note, while Bannerlord still has many issues (especially with its lacking diplomacy, factions acting the exact same politically despite supposedly having different political systems and meaningless relationships where every AI acts too much like robots), it surpassed Warband (in Singleplayer), even quite a few Warband mods by a lot in terms of enjoyment. I would wholeheartedly suggest you to replay it.
 
Cheers for the recommendation, I might just get past my apathy and reinstall it :smile: If nothing else I'll find out how fast my internet connection is these days!
 
And while we're at it, I'd like to see similar line of changes with ALL weapons and their thrusts.

Don't you just hate it when ppl recommend "oh give your companions just swing-exclusive 2h swords.. it's better if they don't get to use thrusts at all" ...??!
 
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