Mounted Awlpike Balance Discussion

[Lord Rich]

The current meta in warband at the moment for swadia is heavily based around giving long awlpikes to cavalry. I am a cav player but I think the awlpike is completely OP on horseback and would be fine with it being changed.

It completely outclasses lances in every way except for the ability to couch, and you can keep a lance in your inventory for that anyway. It allows cav to pull off one hit bumpstabs, the bumpstab was previously relatively well balanced since while safe it tended to reduce the damage and require about 3 hits on a full health player to kill, taking time.

It gives swadia a massive starting advantage against other factions on the first round when they're already the most snowball prone faction.

I bring this up anyway since there is a very easy fix, by setting the weapon to be not usable on horseback in the same way as the pike. This can be done on a server side mod requiring no client modifications. I have tested this, it works.

The only minor bug is that if an unmodified client gets an awlpike while riding they wont be able to scroll-switch weapons past the awlpike. Number key switching would still work fine however. Considering that once this change is made its unlikely that cav will carry awlpikes and there is a workaround via using number keys (who uses only scroll anyway?) it seems pretty irrelevant.

So what are peoples thoughts on this? Is it worth thinking about for future tournaments? I think the previous server side balance modifications were generally well received and it's a bit unfortunate that they weren't continued.

TLDR:
Awlpike is OP, we can make it so you can't use it on horseback via a server side mod. 

POLL

RESULTS

 

[DarkLight]

cavs with alwps are the only thing wich gives a chance for swads to beat nords on maps like sandi or foh, dunno if its a good idea to remove it.

 

[Guaccmoleboy]

I think a good fix for a generally overpowered cavalry class would be adding damage bonuses to horses with polearms or something similar to that. Unsure how possible that would be with native compatibility however ://

 

[Lord Rich]

cavs with alwps are the only thing wich gives a chance for swads to beat nords on maps like sandi or foh, dunno if its a good idea to remove it.

That's not really true, first round swadia are at a disadvantage but can certainly win, if they win the first round they get all the nord weapons AND armour, so their weakness instantly dissapears.

I think a good fix for a generally overpowered cavalry class would be adding damage bonuses to horses with polearms or something similar to that. Unsure how possible that would be with native compatibility however ://

Seems a bit unintuitive that you would take differing amounts of damage based on your weapon choice. I don't agree that cav are OP in general, I think the current meta simply plays to their strengths since in order to avoid over powering crossfires teams tend to turtle and force engagements to be as last second and quick as possible.

If you were going to balance them, changing stats like charge, HP, armour in general would probably be a lot more straight forward.

 

[Lagstro]

I think a good fix for a generally overpowered cavalry class would be adding damage bonuses to horses with polearms or something similar to that. Unsure how possible that would be with native compatibility however ://

That's implemented in many singleplayer mods, and tbh, they work very poorly. The way polearms work and deal damage as a whole is already flawed, giving them extra bonuses against horses give them very weird side effects that don't exactly work as intended. It's clear when your watching a bunch of farmers with scythes that aren't really supposed to be dealing much damage with them completely obliterating armored horses, even by just barely tapping them in the butt as they're trying to run away.

If you want a little extra damage against horses, just reduce the armor on horses.

 

[Killfacer]

I think Awlpike cav is really broken and should be gotten rid off. It's just anti-skill overpowered. One shotting people on foot without couch lances is boring, especially at the ridiculous angles possible with such a quick weapon. It's also ludicrously powerful in cav vs cav duels.

 

[Lord Rich]

Ha, I totally misread that damage bonus thing. I don't necessarily see downsides to that but it may be difficult to balance since some weapons already do lots of damage to horses (awlpikes again), archers getting such power would also be a problem since it's often cavs job to go and deal with them. Awlpike xbows are already nasty.

 

[Namakan]

I'd say remove the ability to use the Long Awlpike on horseback, but keep it for the normal one.
It's shorter (and I believe slower, not sure on that though) than the long one and about the same damage, making it a more risky trade-off and also not as strong in 'lance vs awlpike'-combat.
Thoughts?

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

yes please

 

[Rayden]

I agree with this. I'm an archer player and in battle, cavalry has advantage against archers with bump-slashes unless archer has some cover and awlpike on horseback makes it even worse.

Dunno what you guys think but I personally also would like to see Khergits in competitive scene, we could remove their horse archers and make some restorations on infantry.

 

[Guaccmoleboy]

I think a good fix for a generally overpowered cavalry class would be adding damage bonuses to horses with polearms or something similar to that. Unsure how possible that would be with native compatibility however ://

Seems a bit unintuitive that you would take differing amounts of damage based on your weapon choice. I don't agree that cav are OP in general, I think the current meta simply plays to their strengths since in order to avoid over powering crossfires teams tend to turtle and force engagements to be as last second and quick as possible.

If you were going to balance them, changing stats like charge, HP, armour in general would probably be a lot more straight forward.

Cavalry are currently the most unbalanced and overpowered class in Warband. This is due to how flexible they can be, and how hard it can be to punish this flexibility. Horses, especially Hunters which are used by 4/5 of all the usable factions in competitive, have a much larger HP pool than they should have and can withstand multiple sources of damage such as stops, arrows and cutting damage to a large degree. Combined with this, horses can bypass the most effective way to defend yourself, also known as the right click button, by bumplancing, which can still be done at slow speeds and cause meaningful damage. Adding to this is the fact that cavalry can effectively move across 90% of all currently used maps in less than 10 seconds... and are still more flexible as they can be used as dragoon inf, horse archers et cetera. And it simply does not matter that the current meta suits their playstyle or not, because the "current" meta has been the meta for the past 3~4 years, and will still be the meta for the next 3~4 years. If you don't believe me, look at all the top killers and highest K/D players in all the past Warband tournaments. I guarantee over 50% of those players play cavalry.

By making polearm damage, perhaps specifically only piercing polearm damage, able to do a lot more damage than currently nerfs cavalry by a large amount whilst not making them too weak or underpowered, as 1 headshot from a Vaegir Archer can effectively take away half the HP of a horse currently. This also gives more importance in having things like having a dedicated spearman or using polearms like the pike or ashwood pike. Rhodoks may actually be feasible due to how effective they would be at being able to kill cavalry.

In my opinion, I believe that awlpikes are still a necessary weapon for Swadians as it gives them a unique advantage, and without it Swadians have a much lower damage potential with their extremely poor 1 handed weapons. Awlpikes are a prime reason why Swadians are able to compete with Nords on very inf heavy maps.

edit: sory didn't see ur next post. is it possible to increase damage for specific polearms? i just find it ridiculous that a cav can rambo into a fight, get stopped, and live with half their hp...

 

[Lord Rich]

@Guacc

Sorry but I really don't agree, I think most of that perception comes more from the game mode allowing cav to simply do more than other classes. If there was no way of instantly winning in a short time period and rangers could be guaranteed a longer engagement window, cav would not survive the rounds anywhere near as much and teams would be less forced to throw their inf into desperately vulnerable positions. I think it's just the meta following the game mode mechanics. Viewed outside that I see cav as far more vulnerable than they appear now and I would be interested in changes to the game type to facilitate a less 'all or nothing' approach. The mod that was tested around christmas for the NC was going towards this idea but didn't meet expectations I think.

I don't think that letting swadia (strong open map faction) fight evenly with nords on closed is worth having them trash every other faction on closed and open.

You probably could increase damage specifically although it would be a bit of a messy implementation.

...

Dunno what you guys think but I personally also would like to see Khergits in competitive scene, we could remove their horse archers and make some restorations on infantry.

I'm up for that, their cav is pretty strong at the moment though and their inf is pretty comparable to sarranids. I think on paper they have the strongest cav in the game (if the awlpike is removed from cav), they get cheap hunters like swadia, very good free armour, better 1h weapons, free lances and an agile horse which can match the sarranid ones.

Not sure how easy they would be to balance without a client side mod, not that that is impossible.

I'd say remove the ability to use the Long Awlpike on horseback, but keep it for the normal one.
It's shorter (and I believe slower, not sure on that though) than the long one and about the same damage, making it a more risky trade-off and also not as strong in 'lance vs awlpike'-combat.
Thoughts?

I think its still pretty good versus other horses, the main thing is the amount of damage you can inflict while chasing or up close. You would need to use a lance for any ranged engagements but as soon as you're inside their range you could switch to the awlpike and just start doing damage in a one sided fashion. The main issue for me is really just how safe and strong the awlpikes are against people on the ground and the regular awlpike is pretty much as good at that. The only reason I think vaegirs don't use them is that vaegir inf can hardly afford anything now, certainly not more than half their gold on a drop for cav.

 

[Watly]

Awlpikes on horseback are broken (both long and short). The main issue is that TW is not going to address it.

 

[Guaccmoleboy]

@Guacc

Sorry but I really don't agree, I think most of that perception comes more from the game mode allowing cav to simply do more than other classes. If there was no way of instantly winning in a short time period and rangers could be guaranteed a longer engagement window, cav would not survive the rounds anywhere near as much and teams would be less forced to throw their inf into desperately vulnerable positions. I think it's just the meta following the game mode mechanics. Viewed outside that I see cav as far more vulnerable than they appear now and I would be interested in changes to the game type to facilitate a less 'all or nothing' approach. The mod that was tested around christmas for the NC was going towards this idea but didn't meet expectations I think.

I don't think that letting swadia (strong open map faction) fight evenly with nords on closed is worth having them trash every other faction on closed and open.

You probably could increase damage specifically although it would be a bit of a messy implementation.

So you do agree that cavalry are overpowered currently in competitive Warband? I think it is a tad foolish to chalk up all the problems that cavalry have in this meta to a problem we have in the meta as a whole. I don't understand; if these problems are only noticeable because of our meta, and the solutions I proposed would help solve these problems, would it not be logical to use these solutions to help competitive warband instead of complaining about the whole state of competitive warband? If so, why aren't you complaining about the meta of Warband instead of campaigning for the removal of long awlpikes for cavalry (although I agree, it is a step in the right direction) ?

I'm sorry but I really don't see your argument here.

 

[Gorlock]

>Implying taleworlds would implement balance updates for MP

lmao

 

[Bubs]

I like unbalanced odds. If this were WFaS, people would be complaining about every weapon/mechanic for being unbalanced and poorly tweaked. The unbalance is what makes it entertaining because TW never meant for this game to become a eSport like so many are pushing for. The mounted awlpike isn't the only unbalanced thing..

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

WFaS is famously terrible for balancing and rubbish because of it.

 

[Kragen]

Nords vs Swadia on closed:
1st Round: Nord has a strong advantage in Inf (Axes, Javs), Swadia has a strong advantage in cav(Armor, Awp) -> Slight advantage for Nords in my opinion because inf>cav on closed

2nd Round -	Swadia won 1st Round	Nords won first round
	Swadia upgraded armor and looted nord axes	Nords looted Awlpikes and Upgraded armor
	-> Gains Inf advantage (same weapons, better armor)	->Inf advantage becomes bigger (Slightly better armor + Still better weapons)
	-> Still has Cav advantage	-> Goes even in cav (awlpike loots, better armor)

Nords has the advantage in inf and therefor it is easier for them to start the snowball in theyr favor on closed maps.
If Swadia needs a nerf i think it should be done by making Hunter horse cost more. (Increase price from 607 to ~700). This would force the Swadian cav to decide wether to drop a plain kite shield instead of a normal shield or instead sacrifice its own helmet or not do an awlpike drop at all.
However i hope Bannerlord will be realease in Bucharest i don't think this discussion is nescessary anymore.

Spoiler: Bannerlord will be realease in Bucharest

 

[Surkan]

awlpike cav is everything swadians have over any other faction

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

Swadia have awlpikes for their inf, higher ironflesh, and the ability for first round heavy armour and a more effective snowball than nords. They do not need something inherently imbalanced to compete. If we are worried about Nords being too strong now then look at sorting out their javs.

@Nevino I'd imagine special items is more likely to be event-specific T-shirts and TW gear etc. We might see some new Bannerlord info at the event (focused on Multiplayer?) but that's all I would expect.

The LAN is great but, it's not such a media buzz as to be big enough for release. If anything they'd use the release date as an advertisement for the LAN, not vice versa - we're not that important xD