multiplayer is awful?

[bravesirknight]

I haven't played M&B in a long time, finally bought Warband and started it up on my new system. I'll probably get into the SP again, but what is up with multiplayer? There's really no way to say it other than it has no polish at all. I played a Siege and you spawn on a horse in this badly designed enclosure that your horse gets stuck on just trying to move. OK. I can deal with that, and awkwardly navigating my way out each time. Then what happens at the enemy gate? We can't move because it's flooded with our horses. We literally have to kill our horses to get through and this takes so long that we never actually have a cohesive group there because the enemy picks us off when it can. This is starting to get sketchy. Then later I try riding my horse in water figuring he'll swim. No. He and I walk and breathe underwater like Davy Jones. OK. I figure at least if I try this alternative way it might lead me to a different route to approach the castle. No. In fact it just gets me stuck. OK. Later there's a siege tower route we're using and there's multiple issues with horses/characters switching z height, i.e. walking on the ramp or getting up a step on the ramparts and not being able to make it. I realize later that you always need a lot of forward momentum and a jump to clear these things. Not because it makes sense but because the game is just damn sketchy. Now there were the occasional fun moments, but by and large it came from taking revenge on enemies that had pounded the living crap out of us most of the time using their far superior faction for the situation.

All in all I'm pretty disappointed with Native MP. Are there mods that people play that fix things?

 

[captain lust]

Nice rant. From the sounds of things, I'd say you were playing on a "custom map" made by players, some of which will, inevitably, create various bugs and unexpected problems moving around.

The multiplayer takes a bit of getting used to but I happen to love it. If you don't like the way horses move (personally, I haven't had any issues - remember, riding around on ramparts isn't the best use for a horse), why not try playing as infantry, with a sword and shield.

It's a very different experience to single player and you'll have to learn to deal with a variety of techniques, employed by players, to confuse you, break your rhythm and open up your block. For some quick starting advice, I'd recommend copying the equipment of your teammates and following them around, doing as they do. This'll learn you the ropes pretty fast.

 

[killer-blead]

Sounds like you should stop playing khergits as siege attack or at least take the effort of removing your horse in your equipement screen.

 

[longbow93]

Sounds like you should stop playing khergits as siege attack or at least take the effort of removing your horse in your equipement screen.

Ye joking? In every history siege there were flying horses running on siege towers and jumping down the walls, surviving, and killing everyone! 

 

[FrisianDude]

Indeed OP, why the hell are you buying a horse in siege anyway?

 

[The_Freeman]

What are you doing playing as horseman in a Siege game? 
And why do you think that one game in which you made really dumb tactical choices is representative of the whole multiplayer aspect?

 

[killer-blead]

Sounds like you should stop playing khergits as siege attack or at least take the effort of removing your horse in your equipement screen.

Ye joking? In every history siege there were flying horses running on siege towers and jumping down the walls, surviving, and killing everyone! 

aye but still. Ones the khergit is dead the horse remains. even if its 1 every 10 khergits its still a lot of horses remaining.

 

[Die Slow And Pain]

Why would you play Horsemen in a siege D: I noticed that alot of people who playd Vanilla and then playd Warband always go for cav and fail at it and then they ragequiet the game D:

 

[Mr.X]

Why would you play Horsemen in a siege D: I noticed that alot of people who playd Vanilla and then playd Warband always go for cav and fail at it and then they ragequiet the game D:

Cause cav is OP in the original, and infantry is too buggy to reliably play well.

 

[Die Slow And Pain]

Why would you play Horsemen in a siege D: I noticed that alot of people who playd Vanilla and then playd Warband always go for cav and fail at it and then they ragequiet the game D:

Cause cav is OP in the original, and infantry is too buggy to reliably play well.

I know, you always play cav in vanilla, that's why I started to play inf from closed beta cause cav was boring D:

 

[Mr.X]

Why would you play Horsemen in a siege D: I noticed that alot of people who playd Vanilla and then playd Warband always go for cav and fail at it and then they ragequiet the game D:

Cause cav is OP in the original, and infantry is too buggy to reliably play well.

I know, you always play cav in vanilla, that's why I started to play inf from closed beta cause cav was boring D:

Aye

 

[kingofnoobia]

Why would you play Horsemen in a siege D: I noticed that alot of people who playd Vanilla and then playd Warband always go for cav and fail at it and then they ragequiet the game D:

Cause cav is OP in the original, and infantry is too buggy to reliably play well.

I thought infantry was fine in the original. Cavalry got stale pretty quickly for me, honestly.

 

[Chaingun]

What? In original, you could move over inf with a horse like some kind of lawnmower. That's probably one reason to it getting boring (aside from the overpowered couched lance mechanic back then).

@OP: Don't play siege. As cav, you'll probably want to play battle (or deathmatch, but DM is too repetitive for my taste).

 

[kingofnoobia]

What? In original, you could move over inf with a horse like some kind of lawnmower. That's probably one reason to it getting boring (aside from the overpowered couched lance mechanic back then).

I mainly meant playing as infantry. You had to keep your wits about you, but it had its advantages. While you're not nearly as invulnerable, you'll be killing your opponents a lot faster. Especially when you're fighting with a twohander, you basically get a kill for every swing. So ok, you could barely be damaged when you're on horseback, but you'd also do less damage in the same amount of time, because you're not constantly in the middle of the fighting.

 

[Chaingun]

I know you meant that. I guess I didn't express it properly: I was speculating in why cav got stale for you.

 

[kingofnoobia]

I know you meant that. I guess I didn't express it properly: I was speculating in why cav got stale for you.

Oh, right. Actually, you were quite clear, I just misinterpreted that. Well, the main reason why cav got stale for me is that fighting as a horseman was more repetitive. You did not have to react to what your opponent did. You just ride towards him with a couched lance, and, well, that's pretty much it. Bots didn't have any tricks to pull off to block or dodge a couched lance, they're just too stupid for that. Fighting on foot against other footmen was quite different, especially if you had manual blocking on. You really have to look at what your opponents are doing and react appropriately by blocking and dodging. You also couldn't steamroll half an army on your own (well, you could if the opponent didn't have too many archers and you made a character with madly high athletics, but the tactic you have to use then consumes a lot of time and is quite risky), which made the game feel more challenging and realistic. It wasn't quite the same as fighting other humans in multiplayer, but it felt a lot more satisfying than fighting on horseback.

Now, there was a lot of fun fighting on horseback against other horsemen. I generally also had a save where I played as light cavalry or horse archer and mainly fought steppe bandits or Khergits. That was indeed fun, the fighting was speedy and still reasonably challenging. I preferred horse archer though, because it was in a way both more challenging (harder to actually hit enemies that way) and easier (enemies don't hit you either ).

Anyway, I have a feeling we're drifting offtopic, which is my bad . To say something on-topic at the OP: Duel servers are probably the best place to get a basic understanding of foot combat. If you're not a duellish person, it'll be dull though. I, on the other hand, can spend hours on these servers, especially when there are good duelists on.