New Couching, New Solution Same Problems

[tylertfb]

I enjoy couching and cav in general not for the mindless charging of things, but for the aspect of out riding other people. Some may laugh, but keeping your horse alive is no easy feat, and vs other cav they can become similar to dogfights, where the one who has better control/posistion is going to win.

If the dev's are hell bent on nerfing couching I would much rather see a forced manual couch than the current system. You could make it so you have to bring your lance down yourself and it stays down for a few seconds.

I really agree deeply with this. I feel like a lot of people are caught up in 'skill' being about reflexes and button pushing, and good cavalry play is not at all about either of those things (it does help though), but instead about situational awareness (to steal from Flight sim terminology) , guile, and a more overall mental picture of the battlefield. When I play infantry (which is most of the time lately, just to try and improve my skills) I tend to only have to worry about people within a small radius of myself, but as a cavalry player, the entire map is your responsibility. Angles and manuvering are also much more important as a cav player than an infantry guy. Moving the mouse and pressing the buttons in time is a little less important (but still pretty important, all things considered) than as when you play infantry, but I really think a lot of people over-value and over-emphasize those skills anyway. Sure that means that means you can often kill a guy who would definately kill you in a 1-on-1 duel as a cav player, but if that dude is getting couched all the time, I kind of think that shows that the pro infantry guy kind of has a hole in his game.

*NOTE* I'm talking purely about battle and siege modes here. Cavalry in Deathmatch and TDM is incredibly silly, and I can see where all the complaints about it in that mode are coming from. In Battle mode though....

Not really, no. They become mind-numbingly boring affairs where the lancer tries again and again to couch me and just refuses to accept the idea that I'm unwilling to fling myself into his lance tip. Of course, since he can thrust forward at a 180-degree arc, it's impossible for me to approach him from any direction but behind unless I wish to face the full fury of THE POKENING. Approaching from behind, of course, is equally fruitless, since a lancer is invariably on a courser and thus impossible to outrun. Thus these exciting cav duels can basically go on forever without anything really happening, and only really end if one of three things happens:

a) the lancer makes a mistake, eg by riding into something, thus letting me catch up to him from a safe angle and attack.
b) I get killed or unhorsed by someone else when I'm busy avoiding or chasing the first guy (more often than not this is another lancer).
c) I make some stupid mistake and/or get lagged out, allowing him to couch me after all.

Truly riveting stuff.

I think you have to think a little more 'high-level' here than you are doing. If you and another lancer are in a stalemate like this, you've effectively taken him out of the battle, and if you can keep him out like that, while still aiding your team, you're doing well. Eventually you will be able to use a teammate to cut down his available space to manuever, and one of you will kill him. Maybe not you, but a team-kill is a kill, and the big number in the upper-left corner of the screen (that says 'swadians 4, vaegirs 1, or whatever) is truly the one that matters. Anyway, I guess it just highlights the differences in people, as I find stuff like this really interesting, and you find it boring. Horses for courses...

Please edit instead of double posting. -okiN

 

[okiN]

I really agree deeply with this. I feel like a lot of people are caught up in 'skill' being about reflexes and button pushing, and good cavalry play is not at all about either of those things (it does help though), but instead about situational awareness (to steal from Flight sim terminology) , guile, and a more overall mental picture of the battlefield. When I play infantry (which is most of the time lately, just to try and improve my skills) I tend to only have to worry about people within a small radius of myself, but as a cavalry player, the entire map is your responsibility. Angles and manuvering are also much more important as a cav player than an infantry guy. Moving the mouse and pressing the buttons in time is a little less important (but still pretty important, all things considered) than as when you play infantry, but I really think a lot of people over-value and over-emphasize those skills anyway. Sure that means that means you can often kill a guy who would definately kill you in a 1-on-1 duel as a cav player, but if that dude is getting couched all the time, I kind of think that shows that the pro infantry guy kind of has a hole in his game.

I'm not suggesting that outmaneuvering other riders doesn't take any skill... but let's be honest. It's not exactly the main part of lancing gameplay. Core lancing gameplay consists of two things: riding at a guy and pointing a lance at him. Generally, there's really not a lot of skill involved in either of these things. Pair that with the couched lance's extraordinary lethality and boom, noob cannon armed and ready. Even these lovely cav duels of yours do, in my experience, tend to end in one of the duellists getting blindsided by a third party more often than not.

I think you have to think a little more 'high-level' here than you are doing. If you and another lancer are in a stalemate like this, you've effectively taken him out of the battle, and if you can keep him out like that, while still aiding your team, you're doing well. Eventually you will be able to use a teammate to cut down his available space to manuever, and one of you will kill him. Maybe not you, but a team-kill is a kill, and the big number in the upper-left corner of the screen (that says 'swadians 4, vaegirs 1, or whatever) is truly the one that matters. Anyway, I guess it just highlights the differences in people, as I find stuff like this really interesting, and you find it boring. Horses for courses...

Please, no need to get into insults.

And yes, fine, you can take this noble and high-minded way of looking at it... doesn't make it any less boring. And what if we're the only two left? You would not believe how long some of these people are willing to keep trying to trick me into getting couched, using the exact same tactics over and over again, no matter how many times they fail. And there's really nothing I can do, either I have to surrender the initiative and keep playing the waiting game, or I have to fight on the lancer's terms and give him a huge advantage, basically hoping he somehow misses despite how ridiculously easy it is to couch someone head-on or face-poke the horse of someone approaching you from the side.

 

[crazycracka]

I honestly don't see what all the complaints about couching being OP are merited in though. If I have a 190 length heavy lance and you, as INF have:Rhopike, swadawlpike, vaegir awlpike, sarrinid bamboo pike, you can hit the horse's head before the lance will hit you.  You have to time it correctly and use the full length of your pike, but it can be done. If you're one of these Inf without a long pike/spear, getting couched isn't the issue, not equiping yourself to fight cavalry is. If you're nord Inf you're SOL as far standing there and trying to outrange a coucher...so don't do that?! Teammates with throwing axes will take down and coucher in about 1.2 sec.  Not to mention 1 well placed arrow/bolt/jav/throwing axe can kill a courser riding at full gallop towards you.

Which is why the more successful lancers settle for just lancing enemies who are concentrating on someone else, which is both trivially easy and completely safe.

It's not easy or safe if FF is on and you actually take care to not kill your teammates. Because couching your teammate who's in a fight is just as big a **** move as shooting him with a (x)bow.

Not really, no. They become mind-numbingly boring affairs where the lancer tries again and again to couch me and just refuses to accept the idea that I'm unwilling to fling myself into his lance tip. Of course, since he can thrust forward at a 180-degree arc, it's impossible for me to approach him from any direction but behind unless I wish to face the full fury of THE POKENING. Approaching from behind, of course, is equally fruitless, since a lancer is invariably on a courser and thus impossible to outrun.

Are you talking when your opponent is lancing and you are not? If so we should cav duel sometime and you can lance, i'll use a melee, and I'll show you it's not fruitless. It can be done without...

a) the lancer makes a mistake, eg by riding into something, thus letting me catch up to him from a safe angle and attack.
b) I get killed or unhorsed by someone else when I'm busy avoiding or chasing the first guy (more often than not this is another lancer).
c) I make some stupid mistake and/or get lagged out, allowing him to couch me after all.

all except lag, sounds like operator error/ a mistake in maneuvering your horse.

To the idea this was implemented to force cav to participate in cav charges sees silly. You know what would help Inf when they are 'overpowered' by cav... teammates. Against a horde of Inf/archers lone cav dont stand much chance even just trying to skim the edges. If the other team is aiming for your horse it's going to get shot to hell. Nerfing cav because it has the advantage in 1v1's doesn't make sense.

Also to the idea that the Inf has to engage the cav on their terms isn't true. On all maps but random ones you can hide in/on/around buildings from cav and just sit there. Nobody has to engage anyone.

Quote from: crazycracka on Today at 04:43:05 pm
    Are you talking when your opponent is lancing and you are not? If so we should cav duel sometime and you can lance, i'll use a melee, and I'll show you it's not fruitless.


It's not impossible, but you're always at a disadvantage unless a) he makes a mistake or b) you just avoid the guy. You can't deny that, surely.

I don't agree that you're always at a disadvantage. Sure he out ranges you but that doesn't account for much if you can make his miss by out maneuvering him.

 

[okiN]

It's not easy or safe if FF is on and you actually take care to not kill your teammates. Because couching your teammate who's in a fight is just as big a **** move as shooting him with a (x)bow.

Which is why you only hit them when they're not in the actual thick of a melee, just like with ranged weapons. Unless you're a trigger-happy loon.

Are you talking when your opponent is lancing and you are not? If so we should cav duel sometime and you can lance, i'll use a melee, and I'll show you it's not fruitless.

It's not impossible, but you're always at a disadvantage unless a) he makes a mistake or b) you just avoid the guy. You can't deny that, surely.

all except lag, sounds like operator error/ a mistake in maneuvering your horse.

Pretty sure it's a game issue. See threads on the subject.

Against a horde of Inf/archers lone cav dont stand much chance even just trying to skim the edges. If the other team is aiming for your horse it's going to get shot to hell.

A lone rambo lancer against the entire infantry/archer squad of the enemy deserves to get shot to pieces. It's when your own foot sloggers arrive that the real fun starts and the easy pickings begin. Most of their archers will be too busy fighting for their lives to concentrate on just you.

Nerfing cav because it has the advantage in 1v1's doesn't make sense.

This I don't disagree with. But there still needs to be a kind of balance, if not an even one. Right now, I think the balance for couching is far too skewed.

Also to the idea that the Inf has to engage the cav on their terms isn't true. On all maps but random ones you can hide in/on/around buildings from cav and just sit there. Nobody has to engage anyone.

Yes... so if the infantryman wants to engage, he has to do so on the rider's terms, which is what I said. A stalemate isn't exactly an ideal solution. This in itself, of course, isn't a problem; it's the nature of cavalry. The problem is that I think those terms are too much in the lancer's favor, unless the infantryman has a pike or some such.

 

[tylertfb]

I'm not suggesting that outmaneuvering other riders doesn't take any skill... but let's be honest. It's not exactly the main part of lancing gameplay. Core lancing gameplay consists of two things: riding at a guy and pointing a lance at him.

I think core lancing gameplay consists of knowing where everybody on the map is, being able to predict where they are going, and plotting the best routes to get to where you can make the best attacks with the least risk. I find this interesting.

Even these lovely cav duels of yours do, in my experience, tend to end in one of the duellists getting blindsided by a third party more often than not.

That guy that got blindsided completely failed in his first responsibility as a cavalryman (knowing where the enemies on the map are), then. I don't care how good he is on the mouse, if he's getting blindsided, he's not a very skilled cav guy, and deserves to be killed, whether it's by noobs or not. 

And yes, fine, you can take this noble and high-minded way of looking at it... doesn't make it any less boring. And what if we're the only two left? You would not believe how long some of these people are willing to keep trying to trick me into getting couched, using the exact same tactics over and over again, no matter how many times they fail. And there's really nothing I can do, either I have to surrender the initiative and keep playing the waiting game, or I have to fight on the lancer's terms and give him a huge advantage, basically hoping he somehow misses despite how ridiculously easy it is to couch someone head-on or face-poke the horse of someone approaching you from the side.

At that point, you've already screwed up as a cavarlyman. You didn't support your infantry and let them get picked off by other cav/infantry maybe, a million other things could have happened. If you're determined not to attempt to couch the guy (maybe a good decision...it is kind of a crapshoot 1 on 1) there are a million things you can do. Hell, dismount, pick up a spear, and go to rough ground for one, and you've completely neutralized his couching ability. I don't think the power of couching is really the problem at that point.  Anyway, I also hardly think it is a problem that lancing has the advantage over sword use in 1 on 1 cav encounters. It kind of seems totally logical to me that it does.

 

[blink180heights]

OP is right, i was sickened by the limitations of couching while turning. I was getting killed by 2 handers head on. The thrust is slower and does less damage. Guys just step to the side and kill my horse and/or me.

 

[AWdeV]

I've not done any lancing yet in this patch but what I'd like to see is terrain having more of an effect on horsemen.
- Jumping on to a small ledge should really screw up your balance, tipping you back off the ledge and hurting the  horse.
- Blundering into a wall/fence/pile of rubbish should hurt, if not kill your horse.

This would only be a threat at high speeds, ofcourse. Nerfing the weapons, nerfing the class or nerfing the horses isn't really nice, balancewise.

 

[okiN]

I think core lancing gameplay consists of knowing where everybody on the map is, being able to predict where they are going, and plotting the best routes to get to where you can make the best attacks with the least risk. I find this interesting.

That guy that got blindsided completely failed in his first responsibility as a cavalryman (knowing where the enemies on the map are), then. I don't care how good he is on the mouse, if he's getting blindsided, he's not a very skilled cav guy, and deserves to be killed, whether it's by noobs or not. 

At that point, you've already screwed up as a cavarlyman. You didn't support your infantry and let them get picked off by other cav/infantry maybe, a million other things could have happened. If you're determined not to attempt to couch the guy (maybe a good decision...it is kind of a crapshoot 1 on 1) there are a million things you can do. Hell, dismount, pick up a spear, and go to rough ground for one, and you've completely neutralized his couching ability. I don't think the power of couching is really the problem at that point.  Anyway, I also hardly think it is a problem that lancing has the advantage over sword use in 1 on 1 cav encounters. It kind of seems totally logical to me that it does.

Right. So basically what you're saying is, you want lancing to be a no-brainer cav option. Negligible weapon skill requirements aren't an issue because it takes so much tactical aptitude to spot a defenseless enemy and hit him from behind. If that infantryman didn't want to get couched in the back, he clearly should have focused on surveying his surroundings rather than fighting enemy footmen. After all, it's his own damn fault that he didn't have a pikeman closely watching his back during that three-second interval it took for you to spot and kill him. And anyway, why do you need to balance something when you can just camp and hide from it? And why the heck would anyone want to play any other kind of horseman than a lancer anyway?

Does that more or less sum up your thoughts on the matter?

 

[Jack_Merchantson]

- Jumping on to a small ledge should really screw up your balance, tipping you back off the ledge and hurting the  horse.
- Blundering into a wall/fence/pile of rubbish should hurt, if not kill your horse.

Adding the kind of AI that would make it more realistically difficult to actually make a horse a) jump things it might not clear, and b) crash into immobile objects, would be a great deal more work than we can reasonably expect at this point, and without that it would be far too easy to injure your horse if your ideas were implemented.

 

[tylertfb]

Does that more or less sum up your thoughts on the matter?

that's a little bit of a caricature of my views, and you know it...but...

I guess where I'm coming from is that I like to see Warband battles play out a little bit like Medieval:TW battles, where the basic strategy is that you pin down infantry with your own infantry, then run the cavalry around the back to deliver the killing blow. Of course y ou have to deal with enemy cav before you can do this, and then there are ranged troops to take into account. Anyway, when the servers have a decent population on them, and people are playing together well, Warband battles seem to play out just like this! It's pretty amazing and really fun IMO. Of course this means that a lot of time a team will get steamrolled by a better organized team, even if they have players with tons of skill on them. I don't think this is a problem at all! In fact I think it's kind of neat! Even when I'm on the team that is getting steamrolled! But I'm a little more interested in quasi-realistic simulation of what somewhat-fantastic medieval battles might have been like (did I put enough qualifiers in that sentence?) than I am in a fair and balanced online game that tests everybody on a level field and lets them compete purely on a skill level.

Actually it's more accurate to say that if games exist on a spectrum between those two extremes, I'm closer to the 'unbalanced, but realistic, simulation' pole and you're closer to the 'abstracted but balanced' pole.


ANYWAY I'm getting a little longwinded here, and I'd like to add that there is one cav nerf I'd like to see, and that would be class limit caps (or big price hikes) on cavalry. That would allow them to be realistically powerful, but not dominant, because their quantity would be limited. (and then it would force them to behave in a more team-oriented fashion, and support their troops, rather than go off alone and steamroll everything)

And why the heck would anyone want to play any other kind of horseman than a lancer anyway?

There are tons of situations where using a sword or axe as cav is a good option. Against archers who have noticed your presence, on uneven ground where couching doesn't work, in support of your own infantry, against cav who are poor riders and you can get to crash into obstacles. If couching is superior on wide open ground, well, so what. Not every weapon needs to be perfectly balanced in all situations. That would be kind of boring, actually.

 

[A_Mustang]

I, as a horseman, approve of this change.... However, i believe it is overdone. Turning you horse results in instant lance-up, requiring a comparatively slow lance-down time after...

The mechanic is good, but the implementation is flawed. I propose a change.

The lance will began to rise once the turning limit is reached. However, it will be a slower movement then currently; the lance will go higher then the longer you turn, and about 5-6 seconds into the turn it will be fully raised.

At the same time, the lance will have a accelerating rate of raising, while still being fully raised in about six seconds.

We could even have the acceleration of the lance raising accelerate, (You know, give it a jerk) but that might be too complicated.

 

[SockMonkeh]

I, as a horseman, approve of this change.... However, i believe it is overdone. Turning you horse results in instant lance-up, requiring a comparatively slow lance-down time after...

The mechanic is good, but the implementation is flawed. I propose a change.

The lance will began to rise once the turning limit is reached. However, it will be a slower movement then currently; the lance will go higher then the longer you turn, and about 5-6 seconds into the turn it will be fully raised.

At the same time, the lance will have a accelerating rate of raising, while still being fully raised in about six seconds.

We could even have the acceleration of the lance raising accelerate, (You know, give it a jerk) but that might be too complicated.

5-6 seconds is an absurdly long time but I know what you mean.

 

[jhuseby]

I wouldn't mind seeing the couch lance changed from the previous versions (.711 and before), but this new implementation seems unnatural for couching.  If you could only couch on the right side of your horse (or left side if you could fight left handed ) like in the original M&B, except get more movement on that right side than just stationary, that would work well.  Trying to couch a moving object and having to guess 4 seconds into the future isn't skillful, so I don't like the route that's taken.  Seems obvious they are trying to influence using thrust of the lance more instead of couch, but to counter a thrust you simply block down every time if you are not wielding a shield, that doesn't seem balanced at all.  Cavalry isn't some magic powerful weapon that automatically changes every battle, it's a support tool  like each troop in the faction.  Riding the horse with skill should be encouraged, and outmaneuvering other cavalry is very important in battle.  It's not about running a straight line at people and estimating their position 4+ seconds in the future, that's just primitive. 

 

[CryptoCactus]

After playing with it a bit, I feel good about saying couching isn't broken. It's still viable, and you can still make minor adjustments to your trajectory without raising the lance (the turn restriction might be just a little too tight). I think it fits nicely as a complement to slashing and thrusting (the latter of which I still find to be useful as well...).

I'd still rather see timed couching, but this is by no means a "totally broken" solution, in my opinion.

 

[Night Ninja]

The timed lance lowering mechanic really needs to be added (kingofnoobia has a post about it somewhere).

I keep thinking that all lancers in Calradia must have right arms that are twenty times as big as Seff's fapping arm. There's no way that you're going to be keeping a lance in the couching position while riding around and jumping over raging infantrymen.

 

[Harn]

I always liked the old couching system (after the increase in hit detection for the couched lance in patch .613) where the hit detection was much finer and required perfect aim to pull off a hit. Having the couched lance go in between a person's arm and chest would result in a miss, not a hit like it would now. It also required 3-4 seconds before a lance was fully in a couched position and ready to hit someone, and a ~7 second cool down after hitting someone. The patches based around the .613 couch system remain the high point of couched lancing in my mind.

Vid from .613: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxkL9EQn6Qo

^^ Can see a situation in the vid where my lance goes right under a player's armpit a couple of times, that's the degree of accuracy we need to see again. Nowadays you miss by a mile or you hit.

The cooldown of the lance was invisible, but if you tried to couch someone before those ~7 seconds were up, the lance wouldn't register any hits. People complained about couched hits not registering, not aware of this invisible cool down/bug and thus we have our present system of couched lancing. If you went below the minimum speed, you had to wait a good ~6 seconds as the lance was raised and then lowered back down before it was ready, whereas now, in comparison, it's nearly instant as soon as you reach couching speed.

With .711 and some patches before that, we have people going and pulling off a couched lance every ~4 seconds and completely lack the sense of timing and precise aim that the old system required. I just think we'd have been better off branching into a different direction in balancing couched lances with timing and cooldowns between attacks, rather than band-aid restraints like this turn limitation.

I had always hoped to see the system reach a point of balance where a full speed stabbed lance would take 2-3 hits to kill someone in leather armor, and couched lancing to maintain the aim, timing and positioning needed in .613. Instead, couching was buffed and made easier every patch (barring .720, which everyone seems to hate the turn limit) to the point where  stabbing is rare and couched lancing is no longer a situationally superior tool, but a magic cure-all remedy to most every fight.

I would recommend going back to the roots and restore a sense of timing and aim to the equation, make a couched lance require a committed approach and setup time. I don't know if a timed lance would be a better approach, but I know I used to enjoy the challenge this old setup gave.

Sorry for the wall of text, but this is stuff I should have been voicing my opinion about for a long time now.

 

[Berserker Pride]

I would much prefer the old couching from .600ish to this.  Sure it was hard but at least it could be useful if you got good at it.
I tried this couching again but I couldn't get it to go.  Besides AFK's and complete retards you are much better off stabbing.  .720 couching just feels wrong.

EDIT:
That being said I like the idea behind the change the implementation just feels forced and clunky.

 

[Sir_Jaakko]

After playing with it a bit, I feel good about saying couching isn't broken. It's still viable, and you can still make minor adjustments to your trajectory without raising the lance (the turn restriction might be just a little too tight). I think it fits nicely as a complement to slashing and thrusting (the latter of which I still find to be useful as well...).

I'd still rather see timed couching, but this is by no means a "totally broken" solution, in my opinion.

I tried it for two rounds in a battle yesterday, I was able to couchlance people, and I think with little adjusting this could be good. So the couching won't be too easy, and skill becomes more of a factor when playing cavalry. I agree with Cactus.

 

[SockMonkeh]

After playing with it a bit, I feel good about saying couching isn't broken. It's still viable, and you can still make minor adjustments to your trajectory without raising the lance (the turn restriction might be just a little too tight). I think it fits nicely as a complement to slashing and thrusting (the latter of which I still find to be useful as well...).

I'd still rather see timed couching, but this is by no means a "totally broken" solution, in my opinion.

I tried it for two rounds in a battle yesterday, I was able to couchlance people, and I think with little adjusting this could be good. So the couching won't be too easy, and skill becomes more of a factor when playing cavalry. I agree with Cactus.

I like it too, and yeah, maybe the exact turning threshold could use a bit of tweaking but it's a pretty good system.

 

[Big_Mac]

The timed lance lowering mechanic really needs to be added (kingofnoobia has a post about it somewhere).

+1

And yeah, the turning penalty is way too harsh