Multiplayer Elephant In The Room. Khuzait Is Designed To Be Annoying To Play As And Annoying To Play Against, And Do Not Fit Into The Games Economy

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Let me start by saying that I dont hate the idea of Khuzaits. I actually quite like them, and I think a faction balanced around support oriented inf and an explosive variety of cav can absolutely 100% work with the current game balance. The issue is that the current balance iteration of Khuzaits completely fails to accomplish this goal, or really anything similar either. Both the EU and NA tournaments saw Khuzait struggling EXTREMELY, and with a fairly large sample size there is no way it can be chalked up to a statistical anomaly. In 1.5, the devs attempted to buff Khuzait, and they succeeded in making them stronger than they were, but the faction is still by far the weakest in Skirmish, TDM, Siege and Captain mode.

Khuzait NABB and BEAST tournament win rates

BEAST: 34,7%
NABB: 20.56%


That is horrendously bad. While Taleworlds may not have known these specific tournament numbers while balancing 1.5, I would assume that they had access to additional metadata that would help them make decisions. Here are the changes they made to the Khuzaits.
Spear Infantry
  • Price is changed to 130.
  • Short Spear perk is changed to Spear perk.
  • Move Speed value is increased from 76 to 77.
  • Throwing Spear perk stack count is reduced from 2 to 1.
  • Added default weapon, Shortsword.
  • Steppe Bow
    • Fast Arrows perk is changed to Strong Arrows perk.
  • Nomad
    • Default Horse Maneuver value is increased from 60 to 64, Speed value is increased from 37 to 39 and HP value is increased from -30 to -20.
    • Tougher Horse perk Charge Damage value is reduced from 8 to 6. And the perks additional HP value is increased from 25 to 40.
    • Charger Horse perk additional HP value is decreased from 15 to 0.
    • Short Spear perk is changed to Spear perk.
    • Move Speed value is increased from 74 to 76.
  • Lancer
    • Price is changed to 200.
    • Default Horse additional HP value is decreased from 25 to 0.
    • Tougher Horse perk additional HP value is decreased from 38 to 45.
    • Swapped Glaive and Tougher Horse perks. Glaive Perk now replaces Lance.
  • Mounted Archer
    • Default Arrow count is increased from 25 to 32,
    • Extra Arrows perk increased from 40 to 50.
    • Default Horse Speed value is increased from 37 to 39, Maneuver is increased from 60 to 64 and additional HP value is increased from -30 to -20.
    • Faster Horse perk Speed value is increased from 40 to 41.
    • Tougher Horse perk Speed value is increased from 37 to 38, and additional HP value is increased from 0 to 5.
Important changes
They increased Spearman speed by 1 (one). They replaced one of the Spearman throwing spears with a sword. They made it so you can no longer spawn 3 times with a Spearman. They slightly increased speed and strength of horses. They made it so you can take a glaive with a shield instead of a lance.

Ask yourself if those sound like buffs befitting a faction with a 20% win rate. In my opinion they certainly dont. In fact, the Infantry got very heavily nerfed by the 10 gold price increase. That increase means that the Spearman can no longer be taken 3 times when the player has max gold. Not being able to take their only good inf 3 times with max gold is a pretty huge issue, and it forces Infantry mains to pick either a steppe bow or rabble with their 3rd life. These are significantly worse options than every other faction during the later rounds of a match, and it means that Khuzait is extremely susceptible to being snowballed. The lack of a decent 100, 110, or 120 gold infantry is a massive hole in the khuzait roster, and I predict it will send the faction even further down the totem pole. Allow me to explain.

Economy Issues

With the price standardization of Heavy Infantry, Heavy Archers, and Heavy Cavalry, the economy of skirmish was very much improved. Factions now have to rely on their light units more, and most of those said light units were buffed to make them more viable. The Wildling has always been very good, The Brigand and Warrior are both good for their cost. The Vlandian Volgier received a welcome sword and shied option. Even the empire recruit can take a sword, shield and javelins at the same time, which gives them surprising flexibility and utility for their cost. The only other faction to not follow the infantry standardization, Aserai, has the best 100g inf in the game, along with a very nice skirmisher unit that can still be taken 3 times with max gold. How do the Khuzaits fit into this system? Well, they dont. Unlike every other "Heavy" infantry in the game, the Khuzaits can get theirs twice during the first round. You would think this would give the Khuzaits an early advantage, but truthfully, it really doesnt. Certainly not one large enough to justify the later economy problems I will get into. Ask yourself this question. You are an infantry player. Its the first round. You have 300 gold. Which of these combinations would you rather be able to pick?

  • Sturgia
    • Varyag + Brigand
    • Varyag + Warrior
    • Varyag + Beserker
    • Warrior + Warrior + Warrior
  • Vlandia
    • Sergeant + Volgier with Swobo
    • Sergeant + Volgier Twohander
  • Khuzait
    • Spearman + Spearman
  • Battania
    • Oathsworn + Wildling
    • Oathsworn + Savage
    • Clan Warrior + Clan Warrior + Clan Warrior
  • Aserai
    • Tribal Warrior + Tribal Warrior + Tribal Warrior
    • Skirmisher + Skirmisher
  • Empire
    • Legionary + Recruit
    • Legionary + Menavlion
    • Recruit + Recruit + Recruit
This is just my opinion, but as far as the first round goes, Battania, Sturgia, Vlandia and Aserai all have better troop combinations. Being 4th out of 5 factions is extremely bad, considering that being able to spawn as your best inf twice when everyone else can do it only once is supposed to be a buff to your faction in the early rounds, and especially considering that your possible combinations absolutely falls off a cliff once money gets added to the equation. Just look at how bad it gets for Khuzait Infantry when compared to other factions when the gold is 380 instead of 300.

  • Sturgia
    • Varyag + Varyag
    • Varyag + Brigand + Brigand
  • Vlandia
    • Sergeant + Sergeant
    • Sergeant + Volgier + Peasant
    • Volgier + Volgier + Volgier
    • Peasant + Peasant + Peasant + Peasant (lol)
  • Khuzait
    • Spearman + Spearman + Rabble
    • I guess you could go rabble 4 times
    • but why would you do that
  • Battania
    • Oathsworn + Oathsworn
    • Oathsworn + Savage + Savage
    • Oathsworn + Wilding + Clan Warrior
    • Wildling + Wildling + Wildling
  • Empire
    • Legionary + Legionary
    • Legionary + Menavlion + Recruit
    • Legionary + Recruit + Recruit
    • Menavlion + Menavlion + Menavlion
I hope that outlining these combinations helps demonstrate just how much Khuzait infantry suffers. If the Khuzait Spearman was better, then this wouldnt be so bad, but uhhh

Khuzait Spearman Isnt Even Good For Its Price

7tbtb91.png

Here is my favorite chart again. Its slightly outdated now, but I think you get the point. Just move the sad garbage dot to 77 instead of 76 on the speed axis and you have the Khuzait Spearman. The Spearman is still extremely disproportionately slow for the amount of armor it has. Every other unit below 80 speed is either a 100 gold inf that focuses on numbers, like the Warrior, or a Tanky Heavy Inf that sacrifices its ability to maneuver for its ability to tank. There is never EVER an infantry fight where the opposing class is at a disadvantage when fighting the Spearman. Every other inf class in the game is either Faster, Tankier or Cheaper. The Khuzait Spearman tried to be a middle ground support infantry, but they are not fast enough to be a "medium" infantry, not armored enough to be a "heavy" infantry, and not cheap enough to be a "light" infantry. The only nice thing about the Spearman is its perk selection, but the damage you can do is of lesser consequence when every unit you are fighting can outrun you, out tank you, or just respawn again when you kill them.

"Buuuuuut Ebbbbbbbbb", you say, " Khuzaits are technically a CAV faction, so they shouldnt even have infantry!" Well thank you Mr. Strawman. Funny you should mention that.

Lancer and Nomad are Underwhelming And Sometimes Downright Bad
In a cruel twist of irony, the faction which you would expect to have some of the best cav v. cav in the game, has one of the worst. For whatever reason, both the nomad and the lancer have extremely short polearms and relatively slow horses compared to the other factions. The Speed of your horse and the length of your lance are the two most important stats when determining who has the advantage in cav vs cav, and because of this the Khuzaits struggle in cav vs cav. Both the Glaive and the Eastern Lance are shorter than every polearm available to heavy cav, and also shorter than many of the options available to the light cav. To make matters worse, the default horse option available to Khuzait Lancer is the slowest in the game. There is not a single heavy horse available to any faction that is slower. This lack of speed means that it is difficult to get away from cav engagements you dont want to take, while meanwhile you cannot force any cav engagements you feel comfortable with. Its important to remember that if you die early as a lancer you are stuck playing rabble for the rest of the round and therefore putting your team at a massive disadvantage. Due to cav v cav being extremely risky because of the reasons I have listed, Khuzait cav who know what they are doing are forced to be extremely passive during the early part of rounds. This leads to other factions gaining huge amounts of map control and therefore dictating where the fights will occur.

There is one other little quirk with Lancer I need to talk about about, and that is the Glaive. You can take Glaive with a shield now, and some may think that makes it a viable pick in competitive. Well...sorta. When the correct parameters are met, the Lancer with Glaive is a menavlion cav on steroids. You can shred infantry better than anything else in the game. The problem is that those parameters hardly ever come up in skirmish. The Glaive, as I have already stated, is not very good in cav v cav. Cavalry who know how the glaive works will realize that they have a significant ranged advantage over it, and consistently being able to fight other cavalry is out of the question. Against infantry, you are required to put your shield away to use the glaive to its full affect. In order to safely and effectively do that, you need to be:
  • Away from enemy archers, who can punish you very hard while your shield is away.
  • Away from enemy cav, who can easily couch you while you are sitting still on top of the inf fight
  • Away from throwing weapons, who have a free shot at a rider who isnt trying to defend himself
  • Moving slow enough to swing multiple times on the same fight. If you are only making single passes with the glaive, why on earth are you not couching instead? Couching does as much damage and is much safer.
That is a list of parameters which will very rarely appear in a normal fight. In truth, if the enemy archers are dead, the enemy cav is gone, and the enemy is out of throwing weapons, you are very likely already winning that fight, regardless of you having the glaive. The glaive is a "win more" weapon, whos limited upside does not justify being at a disadvantage in the grand majority of scenarios in my opinion.

On the subject of limited upside, the Nomad is very average. The Eastern Spear that you take with a shield is 8 reach worse than the western spear than nearly every light cav gets, and miles worse than the southern spears which Aserai get access to. The "long spear" which Nomad gets is usable with a shield, but you cannot take both at the same time because they are on the same side of the perk tree. Being able to take both would actually make the Nomad a decent cav unit, but as it stands it is thoroughly average. You get as many spawns as every other light cav, and your horse and armor dont separate you from the other light cav in any meaningful way. The Nomad would be perfectly fine if the rest of the faction was also on par with every other faction.

Ok so the inf are awful, and the cav is below average. I have not talked about the archers, but they are virtually identical to the Aserai archers and very similar to Empire. Nothing really interesting about Khans Guard or Steppe Bow. Just solid units that fit into the gold economy and dont set the faction apart in any way. We know that taleworlds wouldnt just intentionally leave a faction weaker than the others. So what gives? Well...

Horse Archer Exists
Horse Archer is really darn good, and it would appear Taleworlds balanced the entire faction around this unique class. The Horse Archer is the only advantage Khuzait can claim against anyone else, and its a good advantage. They cost 150 gold, and can therefore spawn twice the first round. This makes them one of the best units in the game for the first round. The only other units that have similar quality and double spawn are Wildling and Brigand, and horse archer arguably outclasses them both in terms of utility and killing potential. It can take a good bow, a shield, and has decent armor. It also has...you know...a horse. Overall this is unit that, from a pure numbers and balance standpoint, is absolutely reasonable to balance a faction around. However, there is a big problem

People Hate Playing Against (And Often As) Horse Archer
Its just not a fun experience. When a Sturgian Inf, who is standing on flag after killing the Khuzait Infantry, is getting circled by 2 Horse Archers, who he has 0 chance of catching, is getting shot for 15 damage a piece, he is not thinking to himself. "Man, its a good thing they are able to do this, or Khuzait wouldnt be balanced!" The Sturgian Inf is actually thinking, "God I ****ing hate Khuzait. I cant wait for this faction to get banned from competitive like it was in warband." On the other side of the coin, being forced to play as Horse Archer just to have a chance with the faction you rolled isnt in the best interest of the people on Khuzait either. While it is fun to troll around, most well adjusted people are completely aware of the stigma and the bull**** that is associated with the class. Many archer and cav players would rather continue playing as Khans Guard or Lancer than force themselves to play Horse Archer to be competitive. When you have players knowingly putting themselves at a disadvantage just to feel good about playing the game, you know there is something wrong with the balance of the faction.

How Can We Fix Them
In order for Khuzait to be enjoyable again, they need to not rely on such an unfun and gimmicky class as the entire crux of their playstyle. You cannot simply nerf horse archery so that it works more like foot archery, or make the class cost 160 gold. Doing so would leave a massive hole in the faction and we would be back to the 20% win rate or lower. To put it bluntly, in order for Khuzaits to avoid getting faction banned like they were in warband, there needs to be a ground up overhaul of the faction and the way it is intended to be played. Below are in my opinion the 2 best ways of doing this.

The Buff Method
This is the most simple method for making Khuzaits viable. Just take what they have, and make it slightly better. In doing so, we dont want to completely change the philosophy of the faction or how it is intended to work, but we also dont want it to be a horse archer dominated cheese fest that people dont like. Lets start with the most obvious culprits.
  • Khuzait Spearman
    • Speed Improved to 79 or 80 to make it more in line with every other infantry in its armor class.
    • Gold cost reset to 120. Khuzait is the only faction in the game who can never spawn as a decent infantry 3 times, and 120 gold allows them to do that. The Khuzait infantry is not good enough to only be a 2 spawn unit, and it is also the only actual inf option available to Khuzait.
    • Heavy Mace swing speed buffed to the high 80s to make it more in line with the other maces. Before, it was a straight downgrade to the Vlandian and Sturgian Mace due to a slower swing speed and shorter reach.
  • Nomad
    • Long Spear perk flipped to the left side to replace the tougher horse perk. The tougher horse perk is currently useless, as the charger horse perk is a straight stat upgrade in every category. Now the long spear can be taken in conjunction with a shield. The perk on the right side to replace it can be just about anything.
  • Lancer
    • Default lance length adjusted to be more in line with other lances. If buffing the Eastern Lance somehow breaks singleplayer balance, then another lance altogether should be chosen to replace it for multiplayer. Or alternatively replace the Cavalry mace perk with a heavy lance perk. At the moment the obvious choice on that side is improved armor, and an additional lance option would be a viable alternative.
    • Find a way to make the Khuzait Lancer NOT the slowest heavy cav in the game.
  • Horse Archer
    • Now that the rest of the faction is buffed, we no longer have to rely on Horse Archer to carry it. We can bump HA to 160 gold. This will make it a much more interesting choice for archer players. They have to choose between + Armor - Mobility, or - Armor + Mobility when picking between Khans Guard and Horse Archer.
    • Horse Archery parameters are changed so that it now works like every other form of ranged combat that was adjusted in 1.5.
This is probably the easiest way to fix them, but it has potential problems. For one thing, Infantry players have exactly 1 choice when picking infantry, and that has the potential to be very stale for them. Another issue is that if Khuzait Spearman becomes too good, it can make the faction a little too good during the first round, where they will be able to spawn as their best inf twice. I dont think this would happen though, because the inf would still be worse than every factions heavy inf, and only slightly better or on par with their medium inf. If Khuzait inf becomes a problem they can always receive a slight armor nerf, or have their heavy sword replaced with a less damaging variant. Like I said however I dont see Spearman being a problem considering the options which other factions have.

The Different Flavor Aserai Method
This would require the overhaul of an existing class, which I am unsure if Taleworlds is willing to do (which is silly. They absolutely need to be open to that) but it would be the much more interesting way of helping Khuzait

  • Rabble class overhauled, replaced with Hillman/Footman
    • Class Costs 100 gold, just like Aserai Tribesman
    • 10 Armor, 80 movement speed, Small Shield by default.
    • Left Side Perks: Eastern Club, Larger Shield (Ild sword as melee weapon), Axe
    • Right Side Perks: Eastern Short Spear, Javelins, Sling
  • Spear Infantry
    • Same as Buff Method, but due to the addition of another viable infantry class it can stay at 130 gold without breaking the factions late rounds economy.
  • Nomad
    • Same as Buff Method
  • Lancer
    • Same as Buff Method
  • Horse Archer
    • Same as buff method
This method gives Khuzait infantry a fun new unit without fundamentally changing how the class will play. It certainly wont be overpowered, because it will be a straight sidegrade or moderate downgrade to the Aserai Tribesman, who definitely isnt overpowered. It would be an alternative choice for a faction who has none.

Miscellaneous Thoughts
Khuzait is absolutely atrocious in Siege and TDM due to not having a single decent unit at 120 gold or lower. When players first get on the server, they are forced to play as either the light bow or peasant class. This is significantly worse than the options available to every other faction, and puts them at an incredible disadvantage in siege and tdm

I am not a captian mode player, but as I understand it the Khuzaits got nerfed pretty heavily due to lancer being adjusted, as well as them being the only faction to not benefit from the crush through. Hopefully crush through gets removed and captain mode gets looked at in the next multiplayer update.

People are already talking about banning Khuzaits from competitive tournaments. Fixing them would be a massive olive branch to the community of every game mode, and would make queuing much more enjoyable as a whole.

TLDR
I am a huge fan of the turkic/eastern aesthetic, and it deeply pains me to see the Khuzaits in the state they are in. Luckily, I think they are 1000% fixable within the confines of the game, and it may just require the willingness to pull the trigger on some changes. Nobody wants to see them banned from servers and tournaments again, and being forced to do so would result in the loss of both variety and flavor for multiplayer. If you disagree with any of my points, I am completely down to discuss the faction inside and out if youd like.
 
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Unironically the best and most important post for multiplayer since the EA release. Khuzait is in a terrible spot, now more than ever after a chain of poor "balancing" decisions. The nomad went from being a glass canon to simply being glass, and with that, the worst light cavarly in the game. So many things went wrong with this faction, I'm glad there is now a comprehensive post summing it up.

Unless TaleWorlds reads this post and heavily redesigns this faction, it will see exactly 0 play in competitive matches conducted through the clan feature.
 
Main issue for me is the lack of infantry. The swords of the Spear infantry is just garbage, I think on average I do like 10 damage with it, and lack of armor while it makes sense culturally makes them frustratingly weak. Khans guard is a better infantry.
 
What about you implemented a class system that would let you take infantry that would be at par with other factions by selecting your own equipment and weapons?

Oopsie
 
Main issue for me is the lack of infantry. The swords of the Spear infantry is just garbage, I think on average I do like 10 damage with it, and lack of armor while it makes sense culturally makes them frustratingly weak. Khans guard is a better infantry.
I find the khuzait mace on Spear infantry to be really good, does consistent damage to all troops and it's not as slow as the Legionary's or the oathsworn's(which was implemented with the new patch but it's terrible imo).
As an infantry player i think the heavy mace on khuzait shouldn't be touched as of now, just changing movement speed(as ebdanian pointed out) should be enough to make them more solid in general.

Really good post,thanks for putting the work in this post(also love that you divide it in paragraphs, way easier to read), i can't say i agree with everything but it's spot on and should deserve a careful read from the developers since they want to embrace this controversial and as of now unbalanced class system.
 
I find the khuzait mace on Spear infantry to be really good, does consistent damage to all troops and it's not as slow as the Legionary's or the oathsworn's(which was implemented with the new patch but it's terrible imo).
As an infantry player i think the heavy mace on khuzait shouldn't be touched as of now, just changing movement speed(as ebdanian pointed out) should be enough to make them more solid in general.

Really good post,thanks for putting the work in this post(also love that you divide it in paragraphs, way easier to read), i can't say i agree with everything but it's spot on and should deserve a careful read from the developers since they want to embrace this controversial and as of now unbalanced class system.
I agree that the short spear is really useful in melee because it doesn't glance like the other units spears, however it's dog**** against cavs
 
Khuzait will be banned from competitive play, just as Khergit was in warband.

Taleworlds can cry about this all they want (TW has stated Battle was removed, in part, because of players banning Khergit), but this is the reality.
 
Let me start by saying that I dont hate the idea of Khuzaits. I actually quite like them, and I think a faction balanced around support oriented inf and an explosive variety of cav can absolutely 100% work with the current game balance. The issue is that the current balance iteration of Khuzaits completely fails to accomplish this goal, or really anything similar either. Both the EU and NA tournaments saw Khuzait struggling EXTREMELY, and with a fairly large sample size there is no way it can be chalked up to a statistical anomaly. In 1.5, the devs attempted to buff Khuzait, and they succeeded in making them stronger than they were, but the faction is still by far the weakest in Skirmish, TDM, Siege and Captain mode.

Khuzait NABB and BEAST tournament win rates

BEAST: 34,7%
NABB: 20.56%


That is horrendously bad. While Taleworlds may not have known these specific tournament numbers while balancing 1.5, I would assume that they had access to additional metadata that would help them make decisions. Here are the changes they made to the Khuzaits.
Spear Infantry
  • Price is changed to 130.
  • Short Spear perk is changed to Spear perk.
  • Move Speed value is increased from 76 to 77.
  • Throwing Spear perk stack count is reduced from 2 to 1.
  • Added default weapon, Shortsword.
  • Steppe Bow
    • Fast Arrows perk is changed to Strong Arrows perk.
  • Nomad
    • Default Horse Maneuver value is increased from 60 to 64, Speed value is increased from 37 to 39 and HP value is increased from -30 to -20.
    • Tougher Horse perk Charge Damage value is reduced from 8 to 6. And the perks additional HP value is increased from 25 to 40.
    • Charger Horse perk additional HP value is decreased from 15 to 0.
    • Short Spear perk is changed to Spear perk.
    • Move Speed value is increased from 74 to 76.
  • Lancer
    • Price is changed to 200.
    • Default Horse additional HP value is decreased from 25 to 0.
    • Tougher Horse perk additional HP value is decreased from 38 to 45.
    • Swapped Glaive and Tougher Horse perks. Glaive Perk now replaces Lance.
  • Mounted Archer
    • Default Arrow count is increased from 25 to 32,
    • Extra Arrows perk increased from 40 to 50.
    • Default Horse Speed value is increased from 37 to 39, Maneuver is increased from 60 to 64 and additional HP value is increased from -30 to -20.
    • Faster Horse perk Speed value is increased from 40 to 41.
    • Tougher Horse perk Speed value is increased from 37 to 38, and additional HP value is increased from 0 to 5.
Important changes
They increased Spearman speed by 1 (one). They replaced one of the Spearman throwing spears with a sword. They made it so you can no longer spawn 3 times with a Spearman. They slightly increased speed and strength of horses. They made it so you can take a glaive with a shield instead of a lance.

Ask yourself if those sound like buffs befitting a faction with a 20% win rate. In my opinion they certainly dont. In fact, the Infantry got very heavily nerfed by the 10 gold price increase. That increase means that the Spearman can no longer be taken 3 times when the player has max gold. Not being able to take their only good inf 3 times with max gold is a pretty huge issue, and it forces Infantry mains to pick either a steppe bow or rabble with their 3rd life. These are significantly worse options than every other faction during the later rounds of a match, and it means that Khuzait is extremely susceptible to being snowballed. The lack of a decent 100, 110, or 120 gold infantry is a massive hole in the khuzait roster, and I predict it will send the faction even further down the totem pole. Allow me to explain.

Economy Issues

With the price standardization of Heavy Infantry, Heavy Archers, and Heavy Cavalry, the economy of skirmish was very much improved. Factions now have to rely on their light units more, and most of those said light units were buffed to make them more viable. The Wildling has always been very good, The Brigand and Warrior are both good for their cost. The Vlandian Volgier received a welcome sword and shied option. Even the empire recruit can take a sword, shield and javelins at the same time, which gives them surprising flexibility and utility for their cost. The only other faction to not follow the infantry standardization, Aserai, has the best 100g inf in the game, along with a very nice skirmisher unit that can still be taken 3 times with max gold. How do the Khuzaits fit into this system? Well, they dont. Unlike every other "Heavy" infantry in the game, the Khuzaits can get theirs twice during the first round. You would think this would give the Khuzaits an early advantage, but truthfully, it really doesnt. Certainly not one large enough to justify the later economy problems I will get into. Ask yourself this question. You are an infantry player. Its the first round. You have 300 gold. Which of these combinations would you rather be able to pick?

  • Sturgia
    • Varyag + Brigand
    • Varyag + Warrior
    • Varyag + Beserker
    • Warrior + Warrior + Warrior
  • Vlandia
    • Sergeant + Volgier with Swobo
    • Sergeant + Volgier Twohander
  • Khuzait
    • Spearman + Spearman
  • Battania
    • Oathsworn + Wildling
    • Oathsworn + Savage
    • Clan Warrior + Clan Warrior + Clan Warrior
  • Aserai
    • Tribal Warrior + Tribal Warrior + Tribal Warrior
    • Skirmisher + Skirmisher
  • Empire
    • Legionary + Recruit
    • Legionary + Menavlion
    • Recruit + Recruit + Recruit
This is just my opinion, but as far as the first round goes, Battania, Sturgia, Vlandia and Aserai all have better troop combinations. Being 4th out of 5 factions is extremely bad, considering that being able to spawn as your best inf twice when everyone else can do it only once is supposed to be a buff to your faction in the early rounds, and especially considering that your possible combinations absolutely falls off a cliff once money gets added to the equation. Just look at how bad it gets for Khuzait Infantry when compared to other factions when the gold is 380 instead of 300.

  • Sturgia
    • Varyag + Varyag
    • Varyag + Brigand + Brigand
  • Vlandia
    • Sergeant + Sergeant
    • Sergeant + Volgier + Peasant
    • Volgier + Volgier + Volgier
    • Peasant + Peasant + Peasant + Peasant (lol)
  • Khuzait
    • Spearman + Spearman + Rabble
    • I guess you could go rabble 4 times
    • but why would you do that
  • Battania
    • Oathsworn + Oathsworn
    • Oathsworn + Savage + Savage
    • Oathsworn + Wilding + Clan Warrior
    • Wildling + Wildling + Wildling
  • Empire
    • Legionary + Legionary
    • Legionary + Menavlion + Recruit
    • Legionary + Recruit + Recruit
    • Menavlion + Menavlion + Menavlion
I hope that outlining these combinations helps demonstrate just how much Khuzait infantry suffers. If the Khuzait Spearman was better, then this wouldnt be so bad, but uhhh

Khuzait Spearman Isnt Even Good For Its Price

7tbtb91.png

Here is my favorite chart again. Its slightly outdated now, but I think you get the point. Just move the sad garbage dot to 77 instead of 76 on the speed axis and you have the Khuzait Spearman. The Spearman is still extremely disproportionately slow for the amount of armor it has. Every other unit below 80 speed is either a 100 gold inf that focuses on numbers, like the Warrior, or a Tanky Heavy Inf that sacrifices its ability to maneuver for its ability to tank. There is never EVER an infantry fight where the opposing class is at a disadvantage when fighting the Spearman. Every other inf class in the game is either Faster, Tankier or Cheaper. The Khuzait Spearman tried to be a middle ground support infantry, but they are not fast enough to be a "medium" infantry, not armored enough to be a "heavy" infantry, and not cheap enough to be a "light" infantry. The only nice thing about the Spearman is its perk selection, but the damage you can do is of lesser consequence when every unit you are fighting can outrun you, out tank you, or just respawn again when you kill them.

"Buuuuuut Ebbbbbbbbb", you say, " Khuzaits are technically a CAV faction, so they shouldnt even have infantry!" Well thank you Mr. Strawman. Funny you should mention that.

Lancer and Nomad are Underwhelming And Sometimes Downright Bad
In a cruel twist of irony, the faction which you would expect to have some of the best cav v. cav in the game, has one of the worst. For whatever reason, both the nomad and the lancer have extremely short polearms and relatively slow horses compared to the other factions. The Speed of your horse and the length of your lance are the two most important stats when determining who has the advantage in cav vs cav, and because of this the Khuzaits struggle in cav vs cav. Both the Glaive and the Eastern Lance are shorter than every polearm available to heavy cav, and also shorter than many of the options available to the light cav. To make matters worse, the default horse option available to Khuzait Lancer is the slowest in the game. There is not a single heavy horse available to any faction that is slower. This lack of speed means that it is difficult to get away from cav engagements you dont want to take, while meanwhile you cannot force any cav engagements you feel comfortable with. Its important to remember that if you die early as a lancer you are stuck playing rabble for the rest of the round and therefore putting your team at a massive disadvantage. Due to cav v cav being extremely risky because of the reasons I have listed, Khuzait cav who know what they are doing are forced to be extremely passive during the early part of rounds. This leads to other factions gaining huge amounts of map control and therefore dictating where the fights will occur.

There is one other little quirk with Lancer I need to talk about about, and that is the Glaive. You can take Glaive with a shield now, and some may think that makes it a viable pick in competitive. Well...sorta. When the correct parameters are met, the Lancer with Glaive is a menavlion cav on steroids. You can shred infantry better than anything else in the game. The problem is that those parameters hardly ever come up in skirmish. The Glaive, as I have already stated, is not very good in cav v cav. Cavalry who know how the glaive works will realize that they have a significant ranged advantage over it, and consistently being able to fight other cavalry is out of the question. Against infantry, you are required to put your shield away to use the glaive to its full affect. In order to safely and effectively do that, you need to be:
  • Away from enemy archers, who can punish you very hard while your shield is away.
  • Away from enemy cav, who can easily couch you while you are sitting still on top of the inf fight
  • Away from throwing weapons, who have a free shot at a rider who isnt trying to defend himself
  • Moving slow enough to swing multiple times on the same fight. If you are only making single passes with the glaive, why on earth are you not couching instead? Couching does as much damage and is much safer.
That is a list of parameters which will very rarely appear in a normal fight. In truth, if the enemy archers are dead, the enemy cav is gone, and the enemy is out of throwing weapons, you are very likely already winning that fight, regardless of you having the glaive. The glaive is a "win more" weapon, whos limited upside does not justify being at a disadvantage in the grand majority of scenarios in my opinion.

On the subject of limited upside, the Nomad is very average. The Eastern Spear that you take with a shield is 8 reach worse than the western spear than nearly every light cav gets, and miles worse than the southern spears which Aserai get access to. The "long spear" which Nomad gets is usable with a shield, but you cannot take both at the same time because they are on the same side of the perk tree. Being able to take both would actually make the Nomad a decent cav unit, but as it stands it is thoroughly average. You get as many spawns as every other light cav, and your horse and armor dont separate you from the other light cav in any meaningful way. The Nomad would be perfectly fine if the rest of the faction was also on par with every other faction.

Ok so the inf are awful, and the cav is below average. I have not talked about the archers, but they are virtually identical to the Aserai archers and very similar to Empire. Nothing really interesting about Khans Guard or Steppe Bow. Just solid units that fit into the gold economy and dont set the faction apart in any way. We know that taleworlds wouldnt just intentionally leave a faction weaker than the others. So what gives? Well...

Horse Archer Exists
Horse Archer is really darn good, and it would appear Taleworlds balanced the entire faction around this unique class. The Horse Archer is the only advantage Khuzait can claim against anyone else, and its a good advantage. They cost 150 gold, and can therefore spawn twice the first round. This makes them one of the best units in the game for the first round. The only other units that have similar quality and double spawn are Wildling and Brigand, and horse archer arguably outclasses them both in terms of utility and killing potential. It can take a good bow, a shield, and has decent armor. It also has...you know...a horse. Overall this is unit that, from a pure numbers and balance standpoint, is absolutely reasonable to balance a faction around. However, there is a big problem

People Hate Playing Against (And Often As) Horse Archer
Its just not a fun experience. When a Sturgian Inf, who is standing on flag after killing the Khuzait Infantry, is getting circled by 2 Horse Archers, who he has 0 chance of catching, is getting shot for 15 damage a piece, he is not thinking to himself. "Man, its a good thing they are able to do this, or Khuzait wouldnt be balanced!" The Sturgian Inf is actually thinking, "God I ****ing hate Khuzait. I cant wait for this faction to get banned from competitive like it was in warband." On the other side of the coin, being forced to play as Horse Archer just to have a chance with the faction you rolled isnt in the best interest of the people on Khuzait either. While it is fun to troll around, most well adjusted people are completely aware of the stigma and the bull**** that is associated with the class. Many archer and cav players would rather continue playing as Khans Guard or Lancer than force themselves to play Horse Archer to be competitive. When you have players knowingly putting themselves at a disadvantage just to feel good about playing the game, you know there is something wrong with the balance of the faction.

How Can We Fix Them
In order for Khuzait to be enjoyable again, they need to not rely on such an unfun and gimmicky class as the entire crux of their playstyle. You cannot simply nerf horse archery so that it works more like foot archery, or make the class cost 160 gold. Doing so would leave a massive hole in the faction and we would be back to the 20% win rate or lower. To put it bluntly, in order for Khuzaits to avoid getting faction banned like they were in warband, there needs to be a ground up overhaul of the faction and the way it is intended to be played. Below are in my opinion the 2 best ways of doing this.

The Buff Method
This is the most simple method for making Khuzaits viable. Just take what they have, and make it slightly better. In doing so, we dont want to completely change the philosophy of the faction or how it is intended to work, but we also dont want it to be a horse archer dominated cheese fest that people dont like. Lets start with the most obvious culprits.
  • Khuzait Spearman
    • Speed Improved to 79 or 80 to make it more in line with every other infantry in its armor class.
    • Gold cost reset to 120. Khuzait is the only faction in the game who can never spawn as a decent infantry 3 times, and 120 gold allows them to do that. The Khuzait infantry is not good enough to only be a 2 spawn unit, and it is also the only actual inf option available to Khuzait.
    • Heavy Mace swing speed buffed to the high 80s to make it more in line with the other maces. Before, it was a straight downgrade to the Vlandian and Sturgian Mace due to a slower swing speed and shorter reach.
  • Nomad
    • Long Spear perk flipped to the left side to replace the tougher horse perk. The tougher horse perk is currently useless, as the charger horse perk is a straight stat upgrade in every category. Now the long spear can be taken in conjunction with a shield. The perk on the right side to replace it can be just about anything.
  • Lancer
    • Default lance length adjusted to be more in line with other lances. If buffing the Eastern Lance somehow breaks singleplayer balance, then another lance altogether should be chosen to replace it for multiplayer. Or alternatively replace the Cavalry mace perk with a heavy lance perk. At the moment the obvious choice on that side is improved armor, and an additional lance option would be a viable alternative.
    • Find a way to make the Khuzait Lancer NOT the slowest heavy cav in the game.
  • Horse Archer
    • Now that the rest of the faction is buffed, we no longer have to rely on Horse Archer to carry it. We can bump HA to 160 gold. This will make it a much more interesting choice for archer players. They have to choose between + Armor - Mobility, or - Armor + Mobility when picking between Khans Guard and Horse Archer.
    • Horse Archery parameters are changed so that it now works like every other form of ranged combat that was adjusted in 1.5.
This is probably the easiest way to fix them, but it has potential problems. For one thing, Infantry players have exactly 1 choice when picking infantry, and that has the potential to be very stale for them. Another issue is that if Khuzait Spearman becomes too good, it can make the faction a little too good during the first round, where they will be able to spawn as their best inf twice. I dont think this would happen though, because the inf would still be worse than every factions heavy inf, and only slightly better or on par with their medium inf. If Khuzait inf becomes a problem they can always receive a slight armor nerf, or have their heavy sword replaced with a less damaging variant. Like I said however I dont see Spearman being a problem considering the options which other factions have.

The Different Flavor Aserai Method
This would require the overhaul of an existing class, which I am unsure if Taleworlds is willing to do (which is silly. They absolutely need to be open to that) but it would be the much more interesting way of helping Khuzait

  • Rabble class overhauled, replaced with Hillman/Footman
    • Class Costs 100 gold, just like Aserai Tribesman
    • 10 Armor, 80 movement speed, Small Shield by default.
    • Left Side Perks: Eastern Club, Larger Shield (Ild sword as melee weapon), Axe
    • Right Side Perks: Eastern Short Spear, Javelins, Sling
  • Spear Infantry
    • Same as Buff Method, but due to the addition of another viable infantry class it can stay at 130 gold without breaking the factions late rounds economy.
  • Nomad
    • Same as Buff Method
  • Lancer
    • Same as Buff Method
  • Horse Archer
    • Same as buff method
This method gives Khuzait infantry a fun new unit without fundamentally changing how the class will play. It certainly wont be overpowered, because it will be a straight sidegrade or moderate downgrade to the Aserai Tribesman, who definitely isnt overpowered. It would be an alternative choice for a faction who has none.

Miscellaneous Thoughts
Khuzait is absolutely atrocious in Siege and TDM due to not having a single decent unit at 120 gold or lower. When players first get on the server, they are forced to play as either the light bow or peasant class. This is significantly worse than the options available to every other faction, and puts them at an incredible disadvantage in siege and tdm

I am not a captian mode player, but as I understand it the Khuzaits got nerfed pretty heavily due to lancer being adjusted, as well as them being the only faction to not benefit from the crush through. Hopefully crush through gets removed and captain mode gets looked at in the next multiplayer update.

People are already talking about banning Khuzaits from competitive tournaments. Fixing them would be a massive olive branch to the community of every game mode, and would make queuing much more enjoyable as a whole.

TLDR
I am a huge fan of the turkic/eastern aesthetic, and it deeply pains me to see the Khuzaits in the state they are in. Luckily, I think they are 1000% fixable within the confines of the game, and it may just require the willingness to pull the trigger on some changes. Nobody wants to see them banned from servers and tournaments again, and being forced to do so would result in the loss of both variety and flavor for multiplayer. If you disagree with any of my points, I am completely down to discuss the faction inside and out if youd like.

Wow you write some terrible posts.

Wrong on all counts, completely disagree, just another case where you personally suck at the game and dont realise nobody else sucks as bad as you at it and don't whinge 1/100th as much
 
Wow you write some terrible posts.

Wrong on all counts, completely disagree, just another case where you personally suck at the game and dont realise nobody else sucks as bad as you at it and don't whinge 1/100th as much
You realize that you are the dumb one right? Almost the entire competitive community agrees with EB, both Na and EU. It had to be said
 
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